United States or Namibia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It seems that professional gardeners travel on the line, remaining long enough at each place to organize the skilful culture of garden-plants by the keeper's family during the few weeks of summer; but one shudders to think what must be the aspect of this region during the long frost-locked Russian winter.
If the servant be a farmer's daughter, it is probable that gifts of vegetables, fruits, or fruit trees, garden-plants or other country products, will be sent to the house at intervals fixed by custom; if the parents belong to the artizan-class, it is likely that some creditable example of handicraft will be presented as a token of gratitude.
The ash, the beach, some willows, many other trees and some finer species of garden-plants, as Sophora japonica, have given rise to weeping varieties, and the yew-tree or Taxus has a fastigiate form which is much valued because of its ascending branches and pyramidal habit. So it is with the pyramidal varieties of oaks, elms, the bastard-acacia and some others.
On the other hand the dwarf varieties of numerous garden-plants, as for instance: of larkspurs, snapdragon, opium-poppies and others are quite stable and thence are obviously due to peculiar characteristics. Such characteristics, if combined with tall stature into a pair of antagonists, would yield a double adaptation, and on such a base a hypothetical explanation could no doubt be rested.
No occurrence of possible varietal characteristics obscures the result, and in this respect this hybrid stands out much more clearly than all those between garden-plants, where varietal marks nearly always play a most important part. From the breeder's point of view our hybrid Oenothera would be a distinct gain, were it not for the difficulty of its propagation.
But this number gradually diminishes as the season advances. It would be quite superfluous to give further proof of the general validity of the law of periodicity in ever-sporting varieties. One of the most curious anomalies that may be met with in ornamental garden-plants is the conversion of stamens into pistils.
But since most of the sterile hybrids are only known to us in a single individual and its vegetative offspring, this surmise offers an explanation of the rare occurrence of sports. Finally, we must consider some of the so called hybrid races or strains of garden-plants. Dahlia, Gladiolus, Amaryllis, Fuchsia, Pelargonium and many other common flowers afford the best known instances.
Although the snow lies in some of the valleys till the end of May, because the high, over-shadowing mountains intercept the warm sunbeams, yet garden-plants prosper.
Nearly allied are quite a number of garden-plants with double flower-heads, among which are the double camomiles. My attention was first drawn to the structure of the heads and especially to the number of the ray-florets of the corn-marigold. The species appertains to that group of composites which have a head of small tubular florets surrounded by a broad border of rays.
In the year 1671 a Dutch botanist, Abraham Munting published a large volume on garden-plants, containing a great number of very good engravings. Most of them of course show normal plants, but intermixed with these are varieties, that are still in cultivation and therefore must be at least two centuries old. Others, though not figured, are easily recognized by their names and descriptions.
Word Of The Day