PARK AND CEMETERY. 
CLEMATIS PANICULATA. 
This is the best all round vine for amateurs, 
and one plant in every village garden would not be 
too many, particularly if each one were grown in 
a way unlike all of the others. But even if all were 
set in the same relative position, and trained in prac- 
CLEMA'l'IS PANICULATA. 
tically the same way, the result would be far less 
monotonous than the barren door yards (gardens 
would be a misnomer) that surround a majority of 
the prairie villages of the middle West. 
* * * 
Indeed no matter where planted this clematis 
introduces beauty — and beauty always makes an 
impression. The vine makes but a poor showing 
when planted in a very dry and hot situation, as, 
for instance, close to the south side of a building 
having a brick or stone foundation. An eastern 
exposure seems to suit it admirably here in South 
Central Illinois, and there is a large and well de- 
veloped plant of it growing close against the north 
side of the stone lodge at the museum entrance to 
the Missouri Botanical Garden at St. Louis. 
* * * 
The lovely plant seen in the illustration stands 
about six feet east of a side porch at the home of 
Mr. Frank Stewart in Brighton, Illinois. It is 
placed just where the waste water from a much used 
well runs to its roots — the end of the trough is seen 
resting on the rocks in front of the tobacco pail 
filled with growing water Hyacinths. It is the re- 
sult of a thrifty two-year-old plant received from a 
nursery in the spring of ’96, and set out carefully in 
good, well prepared soil. It has had a top dressing 
of well decayed manure in late fall each year since, 
and at the same time the entire top has been cut off a 
few inches above the ground. It gets full sunshine 
all day, except very early in the morning and late 
in the afternoon. It bloomed with unexpected 
freedom the first year; the illustration shows its 
appearance in ’97 ; and this fall the flower crop 
was fully double that of last year and would easily 
have covered a space double the size of the support 
given it. It converted a trellis six feet wide and 
six and one-half feet high into a heaped-up mound 
of flowers that was likened by some to the deep yet 
airy snow wreaths that sometimes form on ever- 
green trees, and to me (especially when seen by 
moonlight) seemed like a wonderful web of lace 
caught over the foliage. 
* * * 
The rocks, the usually overflowing water, and 
the pine tree standing close at hand, combined with 
the Clematis, produced a Japanesque effect that was 
this year intensified by long, slender, flowering 
trails of the Clematis straying up over the fine 
branches where the starry blooms were shown in 
distinct relief against the dark green pine needles. 
* * * 
No Village Improvement Society can do better 
than to encourage the free planting of Clematis 
paniculata, and to lengthen the season of such 
beautiful and satisfactory blossoms, Clematis Mon- 
tana should be planted to supply spring flowers of 
a similar type, and C. flammula to bloom in July 
The flowers of these three varieties are very 
similar, and every friend of C. paniculata should 
make the acquaintance of the other two, 
Fanny Copley Seavey. 
A CALADIUM BLOSSOM. 
There is always a pleasure attending the discov- 
ery of some rare blossom in our gardens, and some 
little pride is always manifested in showing our 
friends something new or rare. As Mr. William 
Stone expressed it at the Omaha meeting of Ceme- 
tery superintendents : “ Everybody has seen ger- 
aniums and the common things, and are always 
glad to see something new.” 
I there spoke to some of our members about 
having a caladium in bloom and found that many, 
like myself, had never seen the blossom of that 
plant, so I determined to secure a photograph for 
