ee ee ee 
804 CHRYSANTHEMUM. 
when it grows on meadows or among the artifi- 
cial grasses, it forms part of the hay crop. 
The Chinese chrysanthemum, C. sinense, was 
introduced to Britain from China first in 1764, 
and afterwards, in numerous varieties, through- 
out a series of years. In its natural state, how- 
ever, or with character unchanged by cultiva- 
tion, it seems never to have been introduced ; for 
though many varieties, quite distinct from one 
another, have been imported, all were purchased 
from the Chinese traders, in the markets of 
Macao. It is a herbaceous evergreen, of usually 
about 4 feet in height; its leaves are bluish- 
green, broad, deeply and sharply serrated and 
lacerated; and its flowers, in general, consist of 
large, matty, circular adjustments of ligulate 
florets,—these, in the numerous varieties, being 
of almost every colour except blue, and frequently 
combining, in one variety, a showy and imposing 
mixture of colours. This plant engages much of 
the attention of florists, and generally occupies a 
large place in tolerable collections of flowering 
plants; yet it has a coarse, rank, lanky appear- 
| ance in vegetation, and possesses little or no 
delicacy and very rarely any good form in its 
flowers, and owes its power of pleasing partly to 
the mere colour of its flowers, and principally to 
its habit of flowering throughout a period of the 
year when almost all other conspicuously flower- 
ing plants are deep in the sleep of winter. In 
its native country, it blooms from the beginning 
of November till the end of February or the mid- 
dle of March; and in spite of all artificial appli- 
ances to modify or alter its habits, it stubbornly 
adheres to this season of flowering in Britain. 
While azaleas, camellias, magnolias, and other 
Chinese winter-flowering plants can, by proper 
artificial treatment, be either greatly retarded or 
greatly accelerated in showing bloom, the Chi- 
nese chrysanthemum, whether situated in the 
greenhouse or in the open ground, and whether 
raised from seeds, from layers, or from cuttings, 
completes the annual cycle of its secretions at 
‘exactly one period, and commences its attempts 
to bloom in the early part of December. But 
this physiological peculiarity, while insuring for 
florists a profusion of showy flowers in a mild or 
open winter, sometimes occasions their sad dis- 
appointment, and puts their appliances of pro- 
tection grievously at fault, under an early com- 
mencement of severe frost. 
The varieties of Chinese chrysanthemums in 
cultivation even twenty years ago were exceed- 
ingly numerous; and they have since been greatly 
multiplied by importations and hybridizements. 
A classified list of the older and best known sorts, 
in the Transactions of the London Horticultural 
Society, distributes them into four groups,— 
plants having large and showy flowers and re- 
quiring protection, quite hardy plants with large 
and showy flowers, scantily - flowering plants 
with large and showy flowers, and plants which, 
from either the lateness or the smallness of their 
CHRYSEIS. 
flowers, are not deserving of cultivation. The 
varieties which have large and showy flowers 
but require protection, are the superb white, the 
paper white, the sulphur yellow, the golden yel- 
low, the curled lilac, the curled blush, the semi- 
double quilled pink, the starry purple, the early 
crimson, the pale-flamed yellow, the tasselated 
white, the semidouble quilled white, the quilled 
flamed yellow, the tasselated lilac, the large lilac, 
the blush ranunculus-flowered, the brown purple, 
the two-coloured red, and the pale buff; the 
quite hardy varieties with large and showy 
flowers are the quilled white, the superb-clustered 
yellow, the changeable white, the tasselated yel- 
low, the golden lotus- flowered, Park’s small yellow, 
the rose or pink, the purple, the buff or orange, 
the small yellow, the early blush, the pale pink, 
the changeable pale buff, and the Spanish brown; 
the scantily-flowering varieties. with large and 
showy flowers are the semidouble quilled orange, 
the expanded light purple, the large quilled 
orange, the quilled light purple, and the two- 
coloured incurved ; and the varieties which, from 
either the lateness or the smallness of their 
flowers, do not deserve to be cultivated, are the 
double Indian white, the yellow warratah, the 
Windsor small yellow, the quilled salmon col- 
oured, the semidouble quilled pale orange, the 
late pale purple, the double Indian yellow, the 
late quilled yellow, the quilled yellow, and the 
quilled pink. 
The best soil for Chinese chrysanthemums is a 
mixture of turfy loam and peat, or a mixture of 
ordinary loam and leaf-mould. “When they have 
advanced in growth considerably, and got lanky 
before they show their bloom, the top three joints 
must be taken off; and, with the aid of bottom- 
heat, under a hand-glass, shaded from the sun, 
these tops may be struck rather rapidly. When 
potted out, they may be placed upon some hard 
floor out of doors, where the worms cannot get 
through into the pots, and there left to grow 
themselves up to the blooming point; they will 
be found very dwarf, and may be shifted from 
their first to their second pots, and removed 
under a frame, or into the greenhouse, to perfect 
their flowers. The old roots, or rather old stools, 
may be turned out into the open ground to grow 
stock for propagation, or perfect their flowers as 
garden or border ornaments. The depriving them 
of their tops makes them push side shoots, which 
bloom in a late season, or which may be again 
taken off and struck. After blooming, the plants 
may be cut down completely, and when they 
shoot from the bottom, the plants may be parted, 
to go through the same operation the next year.” 
CHRYSKEIS, or Escuscuotrzta. 
hardy, herbaceous, ornamental plants, of the 
poppy family. This genus was discovered by 
Menzies in Vancouver’s voyage, and might have 
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eS 
A genus of | 
been appropriately called Menziesia, had not | 
that name been pre-occupied by a genus of heaths, 
The name Chryseis is borrowed from one of 
