Mav ii, 1907. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
317 
The Golden 
Fritillary. 
The Golden Fritillary (.Fritillaria aurea). 
Maclaren and Sons. 
A Brilliant . 
Tulip, 
(Tulipa praestans). 
Some years ago a new and handsome 
Tulip was introduced from Bokhara. It 
first appeared in public on April 7th, 
1903, and since then it has been finding 
its way into-many gardens. It may be 
regarded as an early -Tulip, flowering 
early in April, rather in advance of the 
Dutch early Tulips used so much for 
spring bedding. 
The flowers are of a brilliant scarlet 
or vermilion-red, passing into a yellow 
base without any black blotch. A strik¬ 
ing feature about this species is that each 
stem from strong bulbs bears more than 
one flower. The accompanying illustra¬ 
tion shows two flowers on a stem, but we 
have seen four. Indeed, one of the 
plants on the same border at Kew, where 
this was photographed, carried four 
flowers. The leaves are of a deep 
glaucous hue, and those, as well as the 
stem, are covered all over with minute 
downy hairs. In this respect it recalls 
T. suaveolens. The stems vary from 
6 in. to 12 in. high. The plant is hardy 
and may be flowered under similar con¬ 
ditions to that given the bedding varie¬ 
ties. It may also be grown in pots kept 
in a cold frame to be placed in the green¬ 
house, conservatory, or alpine house, if 
there is one. Under these conditions, 
the flowers appear rather in advance of 
those in the open ground. 
-- 
Rhubarb Leaves as Food. 
The use of Rhubarb leaves as a good 
substitute for Spinach having been re¬ 
commended in the woman’s column of a 
certain paper, a correspondent writes to 
a Contemporary that on the dish being 
tried by a young married couple, the 
wife died of the effects. Rhubarb leaves 
being a poisonous part of-the-plant. If 
this is the case, surely some measures to 
prevent people being killed in this irre¬ 
sponsible fashion ought to be taken. 
Teaching Horticulture in Schools. 
The Monmouthshire Education Com¬ 
mittee has decided that horticulture shall 
be taught in the public elementary 
schools in the rural districts of the 
county. The question of adopting the 
same course is under consideration by a 
special committee of' the Somerset Edu¬ 
cation Committee. 
(Fritillaria aurea). 
The accompanying illustration shows a 
Eritillarv with considerably Larger and 
more shortly bell-shaped flowers than 
those of the English or common Snake’s 
Head Fritillary. During the early part 
of April, the bulbs having thrown up 
their stems commence to bloom. Each 
stem carries a solitary drooping flower, 
at first of a greenish hue, then changing 
to various shades of bronze checkered 
with dark brown. When fully developed 
the flowers assume a rich, dark yellow 
hue, checkered more or less on the out¬ 
side, but much more decidedly so on the 
inner face. The outline of these mark¬ 
ings is usually square, and has reference 
to the squares on a chess board, hence 
the name Fritillary. The plant varies 
in height according to the strength of the 
bulb, say from 6 inches to 1 foot, while 
9 inches would be an average. 
The plant seems as easy of culture as 
the wild native plant, and may be grown 
in the^ ordinary flower border in specially 
prepared beds for spring gardening, or 
it may be scattered about in irregular 
clumps in the shrubbery. As in most 
other cases of bulbs, the soil should be 
friable and sandy rather than clayey. It 
is not fastidious, but may be grown in any 
vvell cultivated, fairly good, garden soil. 
Tulipa praestans. 
Maclaren and Sons. 
