THE LADIES’ FLORAL CABINET. 
313 
vember io) only opened their earliest flowers; but the 
great mass came into bloom between October 18 and 28. 
Some of the flowers are single, others half-double, and 
many of them full-double. In color, they include every 
shade found in chrysanthemums. The flowers of no two 
plants are alike, and not one of them, except one, is like 
any other variety that I knovv. 0 The one exception has 
double white flowers exactly like those of Mme. Des- 
granges, but two weeks later and the foliage is different. 
Their profusion is extreme; indeed many of the plants 
are solid masses of bloom, two feet and one-half to four 
feet across. The individual flowers are one inch and a 
half to four inches and a half across, and all except four 
or five, are over two inches and a half. 
As Compared with other Varieties. —All are 
beautiful. After discarding a dozen, all are fine; discard 
fifty and those left would be very fine. But I shall keep 
only about twenty-five of them; these are so beautiful 
and showy, both as garden plants and for'cut-flowers, that 
I must give them another year’s trial before I can submit 
to reduce them farther. Five or six are as fine, in their 
way, as any old varieties I know; still I shall designate 
them by numbers only and not by names. 
Why I Will Not Name Them. —Because I have 
no white as good as Elaine, White Dragon or Snow¬ 
storm ; no yellow as good as Gloria Mundi, Gloriosum 
or General Gordon ; nothing as good as Mr. Gladstone, 
Ceres, Rubrum Striatum, Admiration, M. C. Andiguieur 
or M. Delaux. I don’t approve of flooding the country 
with a host of flowers that are not of most superior 
merit. There is a multitude of chrysanthemums raised 
from seed every year, and the chances are that this host 
shall increase a hundredfold within a few years ; most all 
of the seedlings are beautiful; most every raiser wishes 
to have some of his own raised plants named and spread 
upon the market; and so the varieties of chrysanthe¬ 
mums shall increase in names faster than will the va¬ 
rieties of gladioli, geraniums, roses or any other flowers. 
By all means grow seedlings, but please use some dis¬ 
crimination in naming them, and name only those that 
are better than any other variety of the type that you 
know. And have mercy on your friends and relatives ! 
It is no credit either to you or to them that you should 
name plants after them this year which shall be discarded 
from cultivation next year or within a few years. 
Foliage. —The foliage of the seedlings is, as a rule, 
robust and fleshy and retained better than that of plants • 
raised from slips, and there is very little mildew. 
Bees and Flowers.— My single flowers are “alive ” 
with honey-bees, and it seems the white and pale-colored 
flowers are more frequented than the dark-colored ones. 
The interior of the full double varieties is almost inacces¬ 
sible to the bees. Mr. S. Nichols, of this village, and who 
has a large number of beehives, has been much inter¬ 
ested watching the bees on our flowers and is now con¬ 
vinced that chrysanthemums are not only ornamental 
but useful. Wm. Falconer. 
THE PLANTAIN LILY.. 
(. Funkia .) 
T HIS is a handsome genus of hardy herbaceous plants 
from Japan, having bundled, fibrous roots. The 
genus is closely allied to Hemerocallis , and some of the 
species first introduced were included in that genus, 
which has caused no little confusion in names. The 
species are all remarkable for their neat habit and the 
fine character of their foliage, while the flowers of some 
of them are deliciously fragrant. They are all useful 
plants for the border or for massing in the garden, and 
delight in a rather moist, heavy soil and in a partially 
shaded situation. 
They are all rapidly multiplied by division in either 
spring or autumn. The most desirable species are : 
F. Fortunei. —This is a strong growing species with 
small leathery leaves of a bluish or glaucous tint. The 
flowers are pure white or pale mauve. 
F. grandifiora (see illustration) is the largest flowered 
of the species. It grows from twelve to eighteen inches 
high, producing large, handsome, pure white, sweet- 
scented flowers in August and September. This is fre¬ 
quently used as an edging plant, but it is seen to the 
greatest advantage when planted in large clumps or 
masses. The young leaves are a favorite food of slugs 
and snails. This species has a variety of names, as 
Funkia Japonic a and Hemerocallis Japonic a. Popu¬ 
larly it is known as “ day-lily.’’ 
F. lancifolia is a small growing species, producing 
tufts of lance-shaped leaves, narrowing toward both 
ends from the middle. There are some interesting va¬ 
rieties of this species, chief among which are the white- 
flowered variety, F. alba (or speciosa, as it is more 
commonly called—a beautiful plant), F. spathulata and 
F. plan tag in ifolia , with long narrow leaves. There are 
some very pretty varieties with leaves of different forms 
of variegation, all of which are well worth growing; 
notably, F. albo marginata , having a narrow line of white 
along the margin of the leaf; F. undulata variegata , in 
which the leaves are undulated on the margin and varie¬ 
gated on the greater part of the surface, and F. umvit- 
tala, with a broad white midrib to the leaf. 
F. ovata produces large tufts of broad, deep, shining 
green leaves. Flower-stems one foot or eighteen inches 
high, terminating in a short raceme of lilac-blue flowers, 
which appear in late summer or autumn. This is one 
of the strongest growing species, and when in flower 
is very handsome. There is a variegated form of this 
species. 
F. Sieboldi is the most ornamental of all the species. 
It grows from eighteen inches to three feet high, and has 
large, somewhat heart-shaped, glaucous leaves that often 
measure over one foot across. The flowers are borne in 
tall, one-sided racemes, well above the foliage, and are of 
a creamy-lilac color. There is a variety with yellow- 
margined foliage, which is interesting. This is an admir- 
