56 
The Garden Magazine, March, 1924 
Jokers Among the Plants 
To the Editors of The Garden Magazine: 
LL well organized communities possess a gas plant furnishing 
light and heat to those who will pay for it. We gardeners may 
have a plant that will give us gas without cost to its owner if he knows 
how to operate it. This interesting plant is known botanically as 
Dictamnus albus and bears the common names of Burning-bush, 
Dittany, Fraxinella, and Gas-plant. It took me more than twenty 
years to learn how to light it and cost a small fortune in wasted matches. 
All literature on the subject up to the second edition of Bailey’s Cy¬ 
clopedia seemed to use one phrase: “It is said that a lighted match 
applied to the flowers will produce a flame.” The phrase is misleading, 
it will not light the gas, as the flame of the match does not reach the gas 
that is emitted by and hugs closely to the main flower stalk around 
which the flowers are clustered. This gas is very volatile and easily 
dispersed by the winds. On quiet, sultry evenings it clings to the main 
stem and does not reach out as far as the flowers which are borne on 
peduncles an inch or so long. Here is the secret: apply the lighted 
match close to the main stalk immediately under the lower tier of the 
flowers and a flame an inch long and as wide will run up the stalk with a 
hissing sound—a warm, sultry night affords the best results. This 
plant prefers full sun, is long-lived, and dislikes disturbance. 
Another interesting native plant is the Phvsostegia virginiana, com¬ 
monly called the False Dragon-head, but which I call the Obedient 
Plant, as it is the most obedient member of my garden. Its flowers 
are arranged upon the main flowering stalk in four longitudinal rows. 
For illustration I will assume that the rows correspond with the four 
points of the compass. You can push any flower in the north row to 
the right, and it will take its place among those in the western row and 
stay there. If pushed to the left, it becomes one of the eastern row. 
The one pushed to the west may be pushed back and placed in the 
eastern row—can any gardener ask for greater obedience? 
The possession of a garden affords unlimited pleasure and can also 
afford a little fun. I grow a few plants of the Mimosa pudica, the 
Sensitive Plant. The foliage of this plant, when touched, shows its 
sensitiveness by immediately folding up and the branches apparently 
wilting down. Why it does this 1 do not know. When there is a 
young lady among a group of visitors I request her to touch the foliage, 
saying: “ If it acts queerly it shows that you are in love.” She stoops, 
touches it, and then blushes—how true is its prophesy I cannot say. 
In common with some others this plant closes its foliage at night. An 
experimenter potted a plant and placed it in a closed box having an 
electric light in it. The interior of the box was kept dark during the 
daytime and the bewildered plant didn’t know what to do. It knew 
it was time for daylight and opened its foliage, but finding it dark, 
closed it again, and was just as much bewildered when the box was il¬ 
luminated at night. The plant was sleepy, but it was not dark as it 
should be. Finally, after a few days the plant accommodated itself 
to circumstances and slept all day and opened its foliage at night.— 
W. C. Egan, Highland Park, III.' 
Some True Shade Plants and Other Perennials 
To the Editors of The Garden Magazine: 
SHOULD like to add my observations upon the perennial Bell¬ 
flowers to those of E. Herrick in an earlier issue. I also find them 
true shade plants. [Some interesting and authoritative comment on 
“Hardy Flowering Plants for Shaded Places” will be found on pages 
195— 1 97 of the last May issue.— Ed.] Very few of the plants so ad¬ 
vertised will come up to mark in the shade. The most important species 
1 should consider C. medium, C. carpatica, C. 1 actitlora, C. persicifolia. 
The first being a biennial, is an infernal nuisance. Besides, like many of 
the family, it frequently sulks over till the third year. Persicifolia and 
pyramidalis must be started early from seed if you hope them to bloom 
the second year. Pyramidalis is not dependable in the garden and gen¬ 
erally dies out after blooming. English gardeners propagate it by root 
cuttings, but I’m willing to concede a great deal to climate. Persicifolia 
blooms magnificently in the first blooming. (I dislike all the double 
varieties, but that is a matter of predilection). The second blooming is 
interspersed with dead flowers and seed-pods, and 1 prefer to cut the 
stalks to the base. It will then send up a few spindling stalks and 
resemble a second rate carpatica. The clumps spread rapidly and run 
out if not transplanted—which they resent. Lactiflora has the large 
fleshy roots of a Platycodon, and comes up in the same way, rather late 
in the spring. 11 is the most persistent bloomer. I consider it practica¬ 
ble. Its color varies from palest blue or lavender to darker shades of 
the same. You must sow the seeds under glass as the newly germin¬ 
ated seedlings are fairly microscopic. But they grow rapidly, and 
for all I can see the roots get larger and more prolific from year to year. 
Carpatica is the most practicable Bellflower, glomerata is too purple, 
so is latifolia macrantha. The latter is a plant that requires no atten¬ 
tion beyond cutting off the large seed-pods. Alliariaefolia is quite 
ugly. Trachelium is an ugly shade and insignificant in aspect. The 
same will do for Grosseki. Both will survive persistent efforts to erad¬ 
icate. Other species have left no impression on my memory. 
Allied to the Campanulas is a rare Bellflower, the so-called common 
Platycodon. It is one of the last plants to come up. It ties with a 
sort of little white Bellflower, Nierembergia rivularis, but is not as 
late as Eupatorium coelestinum. Platycodon also begins to bloom 
immediately and is rewarded for these immature efforts by being thrown 
out. In fact, it really doesn’t amount to anything for at least three 
years and doesn’t acquire its full stature for about eight or ten. I 
insist that it is a rare plant.—J. H., New York. 
What’s Eating the Rhododendrons? 
To the Editors of The Garden Magazine: 
AN 1 get any information concerning the mysterious, apparently 
nocturnal insect that reduces my Rhododendrons, Azaleas, and 
Laurel to so much lace? Oddly enough no one else seems to be afflicted 
but myself. 1 am constantly visiting the large nurseries and immense 
private estates where this class of plants is grown by the thousand, 
but nowhere have I seen evidence of this destroying pest. 
Perhaps it is a newly imported one that got through Quarantine 37. 
If so, goodbye to our mountain slopes of Laurel and our forests of 
Rhododendrons and our Azalea gardens. I have sprayed with almost 
every known spray without effect. Leaves white with arsenate are 
quite palatable to this invisible insect. It prefers those nearest the 
ground and works from the underside. I am trying to catch one by 
smearing the leaves with Tanglefoot, but am as yet unsuccessful. 
Last summer a new pest attacked the Lilacs in many gardens here¬ 
about. Patient watchingdiscovered an immense yellow-jacketorwasp, 
considerably bigger than the biggest bumble bee. These wasps girdled 
the smaller branches, destroying quite a few bushes. I’ve got this 
fellow’s name, but not his number yet. What can one do with the 
girdling insects?— Julian Hinckley, Long Island. 
—You no doubt have an epidemic of the Rhododendron lacewing flv. 
Have you tried spraying the plants immediately they have flowered 
with fish oil soap, sometimes called whale oil soap? Wilson’s plant oil, 
used one to fifteen gallons of water, will also do the trick. The under¬ 
side of the leaves is the important place to get the spray material, 
especially on the lower leaves. We are not acquainted with the “huge 
yellow-jacket” that girdles the branches of your Lilacs.— Ed. 
Who Knows These Mid-Western Wild Flowers? 
To the Editors of The Garden Magazine: 
HEN 1 came to this place 1 didn’t expect to find any wild flowers 
as this locality has been subject to overflow for centuries until 
the recent perfection of the levee system, but I now have in my garden 
the following, which I have collected in this vicinity: Aspidium acrost- 
ichoides, Asplenium trichomanes, Botrychium virginianum, Wood- 
wardia angustifolia, and a Polypodium that confines itself to trees. 
Besides the above Ferns, 1 have the following plants which I am un¬ 
able to identify: 
A rough-stemmed perennial vine, rather small, ovate, glossy, op¬ 
posite leaves; 2 perfect and 2 rudimentary on each side; climbs to 50 
ft., and in May bears a profusion of flowers that more nearly resemble 
those of a Foxglove than anything else in size, shape, and even to the 
mottling in the mouth. 
A rough-stemmed perennial vine with alternate, large, lanceolate 
leaves; climbing to 30 feet and bearing in April and May many pan¬ 
icles of wisteria-like flowers of a dark mauve color. 
An Iris, leaves f in. wide and 18 in. long; flower stalks 2 ft. high; 
flowers 3 in. in diameter, deep terra-cotta, veined dull crimson. Both 
standards and falls lie flat like a Japanese. 
A shrub 2 to 8 ft. high; glossy, dark green leaves in groups of 5, 
bearing in April a terminal spike of some 100 tubular, fiery red flowers 
that bear no resemblance to the pictures of Azalea calendulacea, having 
scarcely any flare at the mouth; about 2§ in. long and the diameter of 
an ordinary lead pencil. 
If you, dr any of the readers can identify these, I will be very grate¬ 
ful.—W. A. Bridwell, Dumas, Ark. 
