Choosing Flowers for Their Color 
II—A TRUE GUIDE TO THE BLUE FLOWERS, WITH DIRECTIONS FOR 
THEIR USE IN THE GARDEN EFFECTS WITH YELLOWS AND GOLDS 
By M ary 
T HE difficulty of obtaining, even from the most reputable 
dealers, flowers of the exact hue desired for use in a 
given color scheme leads the distraught gardener to pray for a 
color standard, and to set forth in the meantime for the benefit 
of other stragglers a few notes on the differentiation of color as 
observed in her own garden. These articles, except the one on 
red, which went to press before the hook was received, have 
been revised with the help of Dr. Robert Ridgway’s invaluable— 
and blessedly simple—“Color Standards and Nomenclature.” 
Most catalogue makers believe in the old song: “The rose is red, 
the violets blue,” for they list as “blue” or “azure” flowers de¬ 
cidedly purple in hue, as well as the pure blues, which last are few 
and far between. Anchusa italica var. “Dropmo-re" comes very 
near being a pure spectrum blue, though the buds are pink or 
lilac; so does the biennial form (A. capensts ), which is a little 
Youngs 
paler in tone and not so tall. They are both fine, clear colors. That 
earliest spring blossom, Scilla libirica, is a lovely clear blue, a 
little darker than the spectrum tone. Later in the season, with an 
inconspicuous flower of clearest blue, comes the old-fashioned 
tradescantia, or day flower, but the newer variety has a larger 
blossom of a deep blue violet. A beautiful pale blue, coming in 
late April or early May, is Mertensia Virginica; the buds of this 
are pink, but the flower a very clear pale cerulean blue, and the 
foliage an unusually bright green. The forget-me-nots, too, are all 
clear true blues of different tones; some much darker than others, 
but all good. Myosotis palustris sempeiilorens is perhaps the best 
for an informal border, as it blooms a long time and is very hardy; 
it is a light cerulean blue. 
Not all delphiniums are a true blue by any means ; in fact, nearly 
all the darker ones verge on violet, except D. chinensis, which 
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