962 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
December 29, 
; Rural isms • 
NOTES FROM THE RURAL GROUNDS 
A Promising Yellow Gladiolus.— 
While yellow is far from being a rare color 
in Gladiolus species and garden varieties, 
it is seldom found in clear, bright shades, 
and is usually associated with other tints 
or markings in the same flower. Good 
self-colored yellows are much to be de¬ 
sired, and breeders have from the earliest 
stages of improvement of this favorite 
flowering plant worked earnestly to ob¬ 
tain them, but so far the varieties that 
have found their way in commerce are 
too pale, or if the body color is good, 
there are often too conspicuous marking 
of other tints. Good yellow species for 
breeding purposes have always been lack¬ 
ing, for though the prevailing color of 
several wild kinds is yellow, it is so often 
obscured or associated with other colors, 
usually a dominant shade of red, that the 
progeny, even under the most careful sys¬ 
tems of hybridization and selection, do not 
show up pure yellow varieties. Two really 
pure yellow-flowered species have re¬ 
cently been introduced from South Africa, 
and there is good promise that fine self- 
colored garden varieties suitable for 
general culture may be evolved from at 
least one of them. The first came to the 
Rural Grounds in 1899, kindlv submitted 
for trial by Herr Max Leichtlin, Baden 
Baden, Germany, whose collector found 
it in the mountains of Central Madagas¬ 
car. It proved to be a small plant, 
scarcely as large as a Freesia, and a 
Winter bloomer. No practicable degree 
of retarding or of early planting could 
induce it to bloom in Summer. The 
flowers, however, were of good size and 
of a wonderfully pure and bright yellow, 
with no other marks or shadings what¬ 
ever. A single hybridization was effected 
between it and a new. red-and-yellow 
Summer-blooming species of vigorous 
growth, also collected in Madagascar, re¬ 
sulting in very ordinary salmon-colored 
progeny, which, when later crossed with 
the best available commercial yellow va¬ 
riety, produced a fine bright self-colored 
flower borne on a robust plant. The 
original yellow Madagascar species has 
so declined in vitality that we fear it 
will soon be lost to cultivation. This 
species has not, to our knowledge, been 
named, and no further specimens have 
been collected. It was first described in 
The R. N.-Y. for April 21, 1900. 
Gladiolus Primulinus. —We appear 
to have in this newly-introduced species 
a most hopeful source for breeding yel¬ 
low varieties. While its existence has 
been known since 1890, its introduction 
to horticulture apparently dates from 
1904, when Mr. Francis Fox, Wimbledon, 
England, a distinguished civil engineer as¬ 
sociated with the building of the great 
railroad bridge over the miehty chasm 
just below the Victoria Falls of the 
Zambesi River, of South Africa, first 
flowered and exhibited a superior natural 
variety of the species from corms he had 
collected in the “rain forest,” as the 
wooded belt near the bottom of the gorge 
is called. This rain forest is constantly 
drenched with mist from the falls, almost 
the greatest in the world, and the vege¬ 
tation there is usually provided with 
means for sheltering its essential organs 
of reproduction from the ever-falling 
moisture. The particular species of Glad¬ 
iolus under consideration was found 
growing almost under the falls, where 
nearly all. parts of the plant are con¬ 
stantly bathed in warm moisture, the an¬ 
thers and stigmas being protected from 
wet by the sheltering hood of the bloom, 
formed by the drooping upper petals or 
perianth divisions. Fig. 433, page 958, re¬ 
duced from a photograph of a small side- 
spike, plainly shows the odd, yet grace¬ 
ful form of the flower. Mr. Fox has 
named this beautiful variety “Maid of 
the Mist,” on account of its very peculiar 
habitat, and kindly supplied the writer 
with sufficient corms for a very thorough 
trial. We have formed great hopes of it 
from two seasons of culture and observa¬ 
tion, during which many hundreds of hy¬ 
bridizations were effected between it and 
selected species and garden varieties, gen¬ 
erally with a view of developing better 
yellow kinds. Nearly 2,000 cross-bred 
seedlings have been raised, about 150 of 
which bloomed last Summer. One, at 
least, bears flowers much larger than the 
parent, of excellent form and nearly as 
good a shade of yellow, with no other 
coloring whatever. The vigor of growth 
possessed by the Maid of the Mist variety 
of Gladiolus primulinus and the readi¬ 
ness with which it crosses with other 
species appears to foreshadow great pos¬ 
sibilities as a breeder of desirable new 
forms. The hybrids already bloomed 
show it to be prepotent, either when used 
as a seed or pollen parent, over all other 
colors, except intense red, and it even 
then impresses rich yellow throats in the 
blooms of its offspring. 
A Good Grower.— It might be supposed 
that this very distinct Gladiolus, the out¬ 
come of countless generations of special 
adaptation to very peculiar conditions, 
would not do well away from the steamy 
atmosphere and saturated soil of its na¬ 
tive locality, but it turns out to be a 
thrifty grower under ordinary garden 
conditions. In dry soil the blooms are 
smaller and the leaves more rigid than if 
allowed plenty of moisture at the roots, 
but a saturated atmosphere does not 
seem to be needed for the perfect devel¬ 
opment of plant and flower. Good-sized 
corms send up from one to five strong 
spikes, about four feet high at blooming 
time. They are furnished with the usual 
side spikes, and will average eight blooms 
each. The flowers last two or three days, 
standing our hot sun very well. The foli¬ 
age is very upright and deep green in 
color. It is a rather early bloomer, open¬ 
ing in July when planted in May, and 
blooms splendidly in Winter when grown 
under glass.. The color of the blooms is 
uniform bright yellow all over, inside 
and out. The shade is said to be much 
richer, the flowers larger and the plant 
more vigorous than that of the original 
Gladiolus primulinus found along ' the 
lower reaches of the Zambesi River. The 
great prospective value of this Victoria 
Falls variety lies in its vigor and adapta¬ 
bility to culture as well as its fine color¬ 
ing. The Madagascar species had as 
good flowers, but it was small and weak, 
so difficult to grow that the stocks both 
here and in Europe died out under the 
most careful treatment. As Primulinus 
now stands it appears worthy of cultiva¬ 
tion for its own sake as well as for 
breeding purposes. 
Yellow Garden Gladioli.— Quite a 
number of Gladiolus varieties are listed 
as “yellow.” While this is, of course, the 
prevailing tint they often disappoint pur¬ 
chasers from their lack of purity. The 
yellow is usually combined with red or 
purple, and is often too pale or dull to 
be agreeable. The yellow shades, as a 
rule, do not increase as freely as the reds 
and pinks, and are usually held at higher 
prices. Canary Bird, which originated in 
Long Island, we regard as the finest yel¬ 
low now in commerce. The color is 
good and clear and is commonly free 
from other markings, the only objections 
being the moderate size of the flowers 
and the weak and crooked form some¬ 
times assumed by the spike. Ferdinand 
Passay, sent out several years ago by the 
Lemoines, of Nancy, France, is the best 
yellow of the “butterfly” type we have 
tried, as remarked in The R. N.-Y. for 
October 6. The shade is light sulphur, 
and there is the usual crimson blotch 
characteristic of this group. Isaac Bu¬ 
chanan is an old and still popular variety 
of the Gandavensis type. It has a dense 
spike of narrow, deep yellow flowers 
thickly flaked with dull red or purple. It 
has been in commerce over 40 years, and 
nothing much better has yet appeared. 
The much heralded “yellow” novelties us¬ 
ually turn out to be commonplace seed¬ 
lings that should never be offered to the 
public. Growers generally find that yel¬ 
low hybrid varieties produce red seed¬ 
lings, no matter what pollen is used on 
them, and most of the few meritorious 
yellow kinds now known are thought to 
have been grown from red-flowered par¬ 
ents. The introduction of a good yellow 
species that not only breeds true, but is 
able to impress its coloring on cross-bred 
progeny, is therefore a cheering incident 
w. v. F. 
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