PARK AND CEMETERY. 
114 
had for 50 cents, or $1, if very new 
and fine. Festiva maxima is about the 
finest white. Belle of France fine 
pink, grandiflora rubra dark purple, 
“old crimson,” still one of the best. 
If anyone can they should visit the 
nurseries in early June, and select the 
shades of color and types of fragrance 
they desire, for some are sweet, and 
others hardly So, but the flowers are 
really superb. There are a fine lot of 
“tree” or shrubby Pseonias, too, 
which are more expensive, but very 
handsome, indeed. Roth classes re- 
spond splendidly to good soil and lib- 
eral- treatment, but when once planted 
the less they are moved the better. 
Delphiniums, “larkspurs,” of the 
perennial kinds are another superb lot 
of plants with the very showiest kind 
of purple and bluish shades of bloom, 
in lon-g spikes. They flower from early 
to late summer. 
The annual larkspurs are also well 
worth growing and are in purple and 
pink shades and white. Many a small 
garden might make this genus a lead- 
ing feature, and so get out of the ordi- 
nary rut. 
"Water-lilies,” chiefly Nymphseas 
and Nelumbiums, belong to this 
group, and no doubt there are those 
who would like to make a feature of 
them. For . small gardens half oil-bar- 
rels make good tubs in which to grow 
the smaller kinds. Dreers, Riverton, 
N. J., are great growers of these 
things in this country, and beginners 
will be well repaid if they visit there 
during summer. 
The tubs are not handsome and are 
best sunk in the ground. 
The foregoing are a few leading- 
genera in a single allied group of 
plants, which may be used to give a 
small garden distinction. That is to 
say they may, any one of them, be the 
key of the composition. 
There are a great many fine genera 
in the same group for those who want 
more variety and have room to grow 
them, such as Thalictrum, with hand- 
some foliage. Anemone hepatica in 
spring. Anemone Japonica in autumn, 
both in purplish shades and white, and 
the better of partial shade. “Batchel- 
or’s buttons,” -Caltha, in “green and 
gold,” Trollius, Heleborus, Aconitum, 
Actea, Xanthorhiza — a low shrub, and 
Epimediums; and these with their 
manjf varieties are all plants of ster- 
ling merit, and would of course ren- 
der anj^one’s garden planted with 
them alone quite distinct. 
It is not meant that roses should be 
banished, but let the rose man or 
woman work their garden, while you 
work with your Clematis and Paeo- 
nias, and water-lilies. 
‘Try to become specialists in partic- 
ular groups of plants, and not mere 
haphazards or imitators. 
Any newspaper in the country will 
give you nauseating iterations of in- 
structions in the style of seed cata- 
logues, but the result of it all is a 
marked want of individuality. 
This applies of course to the plants- 
of the gardens; not to the numbers 
or twists of their roadways or path- 
ways or anyways. 
There are 50 more or less distinct 
groups (cohorts) in the vegetable 
kingdom, variously represented in ev- 
ery zone. Some are represented most 
fully in the tropics, a few most fully 
in temperate regions — where, however, 
two or three tropical groups, such as 
the black-peppers and mistletoes, 
dwindle to a single plant or two. These 
are not subjects for small gardens. 
James MacPherson. 
THE ARONIAS AS ORNAMENTAL SHRUBS 
P'ew shrubs have caused so much 
confusion amon.g botanists as the Aro- 
nias. Specimens of arbutifolia were 
very early^ sent Linnaeus, the father 
of modern botany, but he at first con- 
fused it with Mespilus — to which genus 
that curious fruit, the German Medlar 
belongs, but that was untenable — 
though he named it Mespilus arbuti- 
folia in 1753, but finding the name un- 
tenable, his son in 1781, called it Py- 
rus arbutifolia. In 1803, Michaux in 
his Flora Boreale Americana, called it 
Mespilus arbutifolia var. erythrocarpa. 
But still these shrubs evidently be- 
longed properly neither to the genus 
Mespilus nor to the Genus Pyrus. So 
in 1807, Christian Hendrik Persoon 
named the genus Aronia. The second 
species was discovered about in 1800, 
and being supposed to be a variety 
of the first named species, went 
through as much confusion as the first 
discovered species. The third species 
is practically a recent discovery. 
One great trouble with botanists is, 
that few ever met all three species 
growing together. One of my great- 
est surprises was to meet all three 
species growing together, thus show- 
ing their widely diverse appearance, 
in the much neglected Arboretum, in 
Palmer Park, in Detroit, Mich. I had 
furnished two species to the .Arbore- 
tum, but never had met even those 
two growing together. Few species 
of shrubs differ more widely than do 
the 3 species constituting the genus 
Aronia. All are very fine shrubs for 
ornamental planting, but differing 
widely in habit some judgment should 
be used in selecting and planting them. 
Each has its own place in our orna- 
mental planting. All three planted in 
a group, make a very good combina- 
tion; in this case due consideration of 
diversity in height should be exer- 
cised. 
With this by the way of introduc- 
tion, I will proceed to describe the 
three species constituting this genus — 
all purely American. I should state, 
however, that the ornamental value of 
these shrubs is constituted in their 
handsome foliage, numerous pure 
white flowers, and in their decidedly 
ornamental fruit, which strongly re- 
semble small apples in form. 
The name Chokeberry I do not like, 
but it seems to be the only common 
name applied to these fine shrubs, evi- 
dently owing to the disagreeable fla- 
vor of the fruit, which even the small 
boy will not eat. The name Aronia 
is vastly to be preferred as a com- 
mon name, being shorter than Choke- 
berry, and better sounding. 
Red Aronia. Red Chokeberry. Aro- 
nia arbutifolia (L.) IMedic. 
A very pretty, much branching 
shrub, sometimes 1:2 feet tall, but gen- 
erally much lower in height. Leaves 
petioled, narrowed or somewhat cun- 
eate at base, oval, oblong or obovate, 
obtuse, or abruptly short-pointed at 
the apex, serulate-crenulate, glabrous 
(smooth) above, usually densely wool- 
ly below; flower-clusters (cymes), ter- 
minal — at ends of branches, but later 
on they are overtopped by sterile 
branches, that grow out below there 
flower-clusters — compound; flowers 
very many, white or purplish, about 
one-half of an inch wide, calyx and 
peduncles woolly. Emit a pome, not 
truly a berry, but after the form of an 
apple, globose, or somewhat flattened, 
1/6 to 1/4 of an inch thick, bright red, 
with russet-like spots, very far from 
pleasant flavored, hence ordinary com- 
mon name. It is a neat, pretty shrub, 
branching very low, ornamental for 
foliage, flowers and fruit. Range: 
Nova Scotia to Minnesota, south to 
Florida, and Louisiana. Flowers in 
March to May, according to latitude. 
It is a very good park shrub. Native 
in swamps or wet woods. 
