belief that they are not generally well known that I have ventured to 
use the word "unusual." 
Those who like small neat plants with dainty flowers will like 
the alonsoas which are very pretty annuals, from nine inches to a foot 
high, with blossoms in shades of pink, brilliant scarlet and crimson. 
The red varieties seem of quicker growth and are freer-flowering than 
the pink. They are good in masses or used as an informal edging. 
Another good edging plant of more compact habit which has 
the merit of doing equally well in sun or shade is the pale blue annual 
asperula. There is a perennial asperula — sweet woodruff — which is 
white and very fragrant but the annual form is but faintly perfumed. 
Its soft, pure color makes it a good substitute for the somewhat 
hackneyed ageratum. 
Browallia is another and a very valuable plant, which comes in a 
good shade of blue, grows from fifteen to eighteen inches high, with 
flowers of a much brighter and deeper color than those of asperula 
and sometimes with a white center. It self-sows so abundantly 
that it might almost be called perennial, and is, in fact, perennial in a 
mild climate. The white browallia is also very pretty and like the 
blue is covered with flowers all summer long. 
Closely related to alonsoa is diascia Barbaras, with lovely, long- 
spurred flowers of salmon pink tinted with lavender in the center. 
It grows about a foot high and spreads into clumps which if taken 
up, and wintered over in a cold frame, will make good sized plants for 
flowering early the following season. Diascia is one of the loveliest 
and daintiest of the smaller growing annuals and it is too bad that 
it is not more widely known. 
In didiscus we have an excellent annual, fifteen inches in height, 
with head of lavender blue flowers. It seems rather a slow grower, 
especially in a heavy soil unsuited to any but the most robust annual. 
I wonder how many modern gardeners know the datura. It used 
to be a great favorite a generation ago — you will find it described in 
all the older gardening books, where it was known as the "Horn of 
Plenty," owing to the shape of its flowers. Although rather a coarse 
plant, it is so tall and bold, often five feet high, and of such striking 
appearance that it has distinct decorative value. It looks best 
placed alone with only low-growing things about it so that its outline 
can be plainly seen. It needs careful attention, however, in the 
matter of pruning and staking or it gets ungainly. I have tried two 
kinds, Cornucopia and Wrightii; the former is the handsomer, the 
latter the easier to raise. Both have grayish green foliage, purple 
polished stems and immense trumpet shaped flowers, sometimes a 
