Old-Fashioned Flowers 
color. In sowing seed, sow it thickly, and as soon 
as the plants, show whether their flowers are going 
to be double or single, pull out the latter, as they are 
not worth cultivating. 
Our present-day Centaureas used to be known as 
“bachelor’s button.” Why, I never could deter¬ 
mine, for the name seems in no way appropriate to 
the airy, graceful flower which we are told is the 
favorite of the German Emperor. We have no 
better blue flower among our annuals. There are 
white and rosy-violet varieties, but the blue is best 
of all. It is excellent for cutting. 
Now-a-days we grow Zinnias. In the good old 
times they were known as “youth and old age.” 
This because a new flower would often be produced 
from among the fading petals of an old one. The 
present zinnia is large, double, and rich in color, 
and in every way a vast improvement on the old 
strain. For hedges this plant is extremely useful, as 
it branches freely from the ground up and grows in 
compact form to a height of about three feet. It is 
of the easiest possible culture. 
Then there is the Nigella, which used to be a 
favorite under the fanciful names of “love-in-a- 
mist,” “love entangled,” and “ragged sailor.” 
This plant has changed very little in the last forty 
years. Perhaps because the florists have not taken 
it in hand as they have so many others; perhaps 
because it refuses to respond to the culture which 
results in so many improvements among other old 
plants. But it has a quaint charm about it that 
makes it well worth a place in any modern garden. 
Its bright blue blossoms, looking up at you from a 
mist of green, will win you as the wild flowers do. 
Plant it. 
One of the flowers that has held pretty tenaciously 
to old-time popularity through many years of fickle 
and constantly-changing opinion is the Hollyhock— 
still one of our best hardy plants. The florists have 
exerted their skill on it, until the modern sorts are 
wonders of beauty in form and color, but I must 
confess to a liking for the old single type, tall, and 
sturdy, and stately, and with a far more vigorous 
constitution than its descendants can boast of. If 
I wanted a great mass of brilliant color for a promi¬ 
nent place on the home-grounds, I would plant single 
hollyhocks there, a dozen or more in a clump, and 
they would not disappoint me. 
The hollyhock has, in the Althea, a relative it has 
no reason to be ashamed of, and one which ought 
not to be neglected now that the good old flowers are 
coming to their own again. Profuse in bloom, rich 
in color, and easily grown, it ought to be given a place 
in every collection where real merit counts for more 
than sudden and fleeting favor which the florists 
who go after “novelties” are largely responsible for. 
No garden that aims to catch and hold to the old- 
time flavor of things ought to be without a clump of 
ZINNIA 
Artemesia, more commonly known as Southernwood, 
but sometimes as “ old man,” or “ old maid.” 
The significance of these names I have never been 
able to determine.The finely-cut foliage of the shrub, 
—which is very graceful in its habit of growth,—has 
a spicy, pungent odor which is very pleasant, and a 
whiff of it takes one back to old gardens where the 
plant grew in such prodigal and aggressive luxuriance 
that other plants were often crowded to the wall by 
it. Another old plant, akin to it, was chamomile, 
of creeping habit, with aromatic, moss-like foliage 
and small, daisy-like flowers of white, with a yellow 
disc. Every season, I remember, great bunches of 
this plant went into the garret to be used medicinally, 
as occasion might require. 
Bouncing Bets were ragged flowers, always, but 
they never seemed conscious of their rags, and were 
as cheerful and optimistic as a flower can well be. I 
remember that grandmother used to deplore their 
lack of neatness—or what seemed that, looked at 
