August 19, 1905. 
THE a ARDEN I NO WORLD. 
601 
Shirley Poppies. 
(Palaver 
Rhoeas.) 
(See Supplement.) 
For the benefit of our readers who are un¬ 
aware of tire origin of the Shirley Poppies, 
we may say that they are artificially selected 
varieties of the Cornfield Poppy. We believe 
a white, or nearly white, Variety turned up 
in a cornfield in the parish of Shirley. The 
seed of this was gathered and sown, and, 
naturally enough, it gave rise to numerous 
other varieties varying in shade of colour. 
This process has now gone on for several 
years, so that we may attempt to give a general 
conception of the different varieties. We 
have ourselves picked up a similar Poppy 
in a cornfield, so that it is left for anyone to 
make a similar discovery, and to develop per¬ 
haps a different strain from that in cultiva¬ 
tion. 
Some of the flowers are pure white, and that 
would be an albino in the strictest sense of 
the term. The stages of albinism are, how¬ 
ever, very varied in a good strain of Shirley 
Poppy. For instance, the ground colour may 
be red, rose, pink, or some other delicate 
shade, with a white margin. This margin also 
varies immensely in being narrow, of moderate 
width or of great width, with all intermediate 
stages. The ground colour may practically 
be white, with a thin shading overlying it. 
In other cases the centre may have rich zones 
of red, orange, or purple, giving place to a 
margin of all degrees of width, combination of 
colours, and shading. Sometimes, as in the 
Cornfield Poppy, there is a black blotch at the 
base of each of the four petals, and this varies 
immensely in size. 
As in the garden form of this species of 
Poppy, so in the Shirley Poppy, there is often 
a tendency to became semi-double or double, 
but we should regard all those as rogues to 
be weeded out, because it robs the graceful 
and beautiful character which has made the 
Shirley Poppies popular on both sides of the 
Atlantic. Their beauty for garden decoration 
is unimpeachable, and for cut flower purposes 
there is no end of combinations under which 
they may be used. 
The chief item is to cut flowers in the early 
morning before the sun extracts the sap from 
the stems, and to cut only those which have 
opened for the first time, as these prove the 
most durable and most beautiful in decorative 
arrangements, or in single vases for room 
decoration. They are obtained annually from 
seeds, which are produced in abundance. The 
best lesults are produced by plants which have 
stood the winter in the open ground. The 
seeds, in fact, should be sown in August, and 
in March or April for a succession of flowers. 
Happiness and Rest in Horticulture._ 
Mr. Joseph Chamberlain some years ago, when 
presiding at a meeting of the Gardeners’’Royal 
Benetolent Institution, sounded the praises of 
the cultivation of flowers with no uncertain 
voice as an unselfish pursuit, and suited alike 
to rich and poor, the meanest and the greatest. 
Never before, he said, were flowers so largely 
used in decoration; they might be said to 
accompany us from the cradle to the grave. 
They added another charm to female loveli¬ 
ness, and did something even to relieve the 
repulsive ugliness of male attire. Statesmen, 
philosophers, doctors, lawyers, poets had all 
found happiness and rest in horticulture; and 
in those explorers ever seeking for new 
beauties and varieties in distant lands it had 
heroes of romance rot surpassed by those of 
any other travellers. 
J 
THE SUBURBAN 
FRONT GARDEN 
The Garden. 
® All Front. 
Joy way of furnishing a contrast to my notes 
on a front garden, page 643, I propose to 
mention another style, which is unhappily 
disappearing; it is an interesting and old- 
fashioned plan of building a house at the back 
of the garden, so that the garden reaches out to 
the street, keeping the house .quiet and 
secluded. I do not put it forward as an 
instance of modern tendency, but could wish 
that more houses were built on the same plan, 
so as to have the house as far from the street 
as possible, with the garden almost or entirely 
in front. This means a central walk down the 
middle of the garden straight to the front of 
the house, and that is a matter not only of easy 
accomplishment but highly convenient to the 
owner of, or resident in, the house. 
The garden itself would be about 100 yards 
long, with the house occupying the greater 
portion of the width, but in the rear of the 
garden. Such houses may be covered with a 
wealth of climbers to keep them shady and cool 
even in the hot weather, and the one I have in 
view is covered with Polyantha Roses, the 
blooms of which are now over, but the leafy 
festoons remain. 
On either side of the central vista the ground 
is occupied with vegetables, such as Carrots, 
Cabbages, Parsnips, Potatos and other useful 
crops. In order to get the most variety out of 
this piece of ground, fruit trees, chiefly Apples, 
in the form of half standards, are planted in a 
. single row along the middle of the vegetable 
area, making a line of trees on either side of 
the central walk, but standing well back, thus 
giving them plenty of room tor light and air, 
and without overshadowing the vegetables 
unduly. 
The owner loves flowers as well, and on either 
side of the central walk is a loDg narrow border 
planted at intervals w ith Damask and Hybrid 
Perpetual Roses, Lilium candidum and Carna¬ 
tions ; these are amongst the more permanent 
occupants of the borders, but room is made for 
Dahlias at intervals, also Calceolarias, Pelar¬ 
goniums, Violas and Lobelias. 
With the exception, perhaps, of the Pelar¬ 
goniums, all the other plants mentioned can be 
w intered in the open air or in a cold frame. 
The roots of Dahlias would, of course, require 
to be kept in a dry place indoors, but neither 
of the flowers mentioned would cause any 
difficulty in the furnishing. The Dahlias 
should be cut down and lifted on the first heavy 
attack of frost; the Pelargoniums should be 
propagated in cold frames about the beginning 
of September; Lobelias could be inserted as 
cuttings at the same time ; Violas can be put 
in a cold frame any time during September; 
and Calceolarias should be propagated by 
cuttings in a cold frame about the beginning 
of October. 
The above garden has a simple wooden fence 
inside a Hawthorn hedge, with a gateway lead¬ 
ing on to the street and which may be kept 
securely fastened if need be. Q. O. R. 
WILD SPORTS 
OF 
BRITISH FERNS. 
& 
I ^ 
At the meeting of the Royal Horticultural 
Society on Tuesday, August 1st, Mr. Charles 
T. Druery, V.M.H., F.L.S., gave a very in¬ 
teresting lecture, illustrated with lantern slides, 
on “ Wild Sports of British Ferns.” His ob¬ 
ject being in this instance to demonstrate 
the absurdity of the general application by 
botanists, up to a comparatively recent date, 
of the term “ garden varieties ” to all abnormal 
types regardless of the fact demonstrated by 
the lecturer that the bulk of these types, in 
the case at any rate of British Ferns, were 
absolutely wild sports, entirely independent of 
garden cultivation. 
His aim was also to show that cultivation is 
by no means the main factor, if indeed it be a 
factor at all, in inducing sports of this distinct 
class, since all the types have originated spon¬ 
taneously as wild plants, and all that the 
cultivator has been able to do is to emphasise 
these types by selection from the seedlings if 
they vary, as they frequently do. 
The peculiar richness of the British Isles in 
wild Fern sports he evidenced by citing the 
latest list, which catalogues about 1,200 distinct 
forms as found wild among our comparatively 
few r species, some 40 odd, many of which vary 
but little, and some not at all. He also com¬ 
bated the theory that sudden and wide varia¬ 
tion of this kind was in any way responsive to 
changed conditions of environment, since they 
are mostly found on hill and mountain sides, 
in glens, and similar places where the same con¬ 
ditions have prevailed from time immemorial, 
while they are furthermore generally inter¬ 
mingled, both as regards roots and fronds, 
with perfectly normal plants not modified in 
the least. Mr. Druery then alluded to the fact 
that since scientific botanists had recognised 
that this particular domain of investigation 
was worthy of their labour many most interest¬ 
ing discoveries bad been made, including that 
of Professor Farmer that certain abnormal 
reproductive Fern cells were closely akin in 
their development to those of cancerous 
growths in man, a fact which may afford an 
invaluable clue to the true nature of that 
dreadful disease. 
Owing to the limited time at his disposal 
the lecturer determined to spread his further 
remarks on these points over the slide exhibits 
and to subsequently collate such remarks for 
the R.H.S. Journal, should it be decided to 
insert a full report of the lecture therein. 
The first slide shown presented the various 
life cycles of Ferns as depicted by Prof. F. O. 
Bower, the normal roundabout process of re¬ 
production through the spore being short 
circuited as it were in apparently all possible 
ways, though the subsequent discovery of Dr. 
Lang that the Fern prothallus may bear spores, 
adds another of Nature’s short cuts. Some 
forty forms of Ferns, embracing ten species, 
were then shown on the screen, depicting first 
a number of wild sports, which were described 
seriatim, followed by a few of the beautifu 
results of selective cultivation and concluding 
with a view of the lecturer’s fernery in which 
