The Hawaiian gazette., 1904-09-16

sion shows tfiisnff ~ The care N q
yard man vhd Keeps 40 he grounds
We could SURELY find time a. plant ard
tend q flower bed hri h s uWis ihe az
repiiUn in hnd that be has done this
in plac, N towering plants. sos will
hHd bordering The driveway aid lhnm
The dwelling foliage plants and ferns
rather than flowers l. h because the
yard man Is not skilled horticultural.
uf is there good reason why preference
is given 90 the foliage plant Custom ~
fashion has something b. do with II. but
custom is generally based on reason, and
here Il j. evident IN the first place that
shade.loVing plants must have the pre-
ference. and IN the second that plants
which retain their beauty the year round
and year after year will In the natural
course OF things displace in a little
while the Towering plants which are not
equally perennial.
There Is another reason. The eye de-
lights in color. and will not be content
with the beauty OF form alone But in
Honolulu the flower bed is not a neces-
sity in order 10 satisfy this craving. II
one has a few oleander shrubs-not the
spindling little plants seen III some coun-
tries i'll tubs. but perennial sheaves Of
bloom, redolent OF perfume; and Ala
manda vine shading the veranda, and
gorgeous the year round with its great
golden blossoms; perhaps a Thunbergia
giving generously blue to supplement the
gold, or il richer blue is sought. a
Clitoria vine; a hedge OF scarlet Hisbis-
Gus perpetually in bloom, and one or two
Plumerias, that may be ungainly in as
pect for a month or two when the leaves
drop from their club like stems, but
which make ample atonement the rest
of the year in the profusion of their
fragrant, exquisitely nodded, delicately
tinted. starlike blossoms; ii one has a
few plants like these he may rest salts
fed as regards his appetite for color
Even without this, he may have all
through the summer months almost a
surfeit of color. A neighbor has perhaps
an arbor covered with Bougainvillea
vine When the blossoming time comes,
the deep green of its foliage will be
flecked at first with a rudy purple
patches of color will spread and become
continent, until the whole arbor is a
mass of purple. 1t seems like an expert
ment in decorative art belonging to a
primitive and barbaric stage. You are
not sorry that nature has not yet re-
peated it. There are varieties of Bout
gainvillea, however, of a more pleasing
color-salmon brick red, even an orange
scarlet What is remarkable in all is
that it is not the flowers at all that are
thus colored. 1t is only the bracts that
enclose the inconspicuous flower clus-
tiers. The plant is of the same family
as the four o'clock, in which, botansts
tell us that the colored part is calyx, not
corolla.
Another vine often trained over
porches and barns, Bignonia, but I'M
like the Trumpet Creeper, makes the
Bougainvillea envious when it puts on
its gala dress. Here apain is solid color
but no longer the suggestions of the dye
vat 1t is the color of living flame, not
uniform in tint, but full of lights and
shades such as belong to veritable fame,
and the plant wears this gorgeous attire
wholly concealing the every day garment
of green which it covers, for weeks at
a time, and more than once in the year
More priced but less common is the
Stephanotis, whose fragrant clusters in
their season transform the trellis into a
snow bank.
The same snow effect is produced
when the ungainly 1eshy stems of the
nightblooming cereus (Cereus triquetra)
which are piled up on stone fences, max
ing the semblance of an evergreen hedge,
clothe themselves. as they do once in
three or four weeks, through the SUM
mer months, with their giant lily bios
. Af =
Oahu College, continuous stretch of
two hundred wards, on which it is
common thing to see two thousand bios
SONS at once-sometimes there have
been three or four times that number.
OF course this snow meltS under the
morning sun. By nine o'clock in the
the glory is departed, although
the following night may see it restored.
The plant blossoms two nights in sue
cession, with perhaps a few belated
flowers for the third night, or a few
that anticipate the general blossomlng-
then there will be a rest while new
crop of buds develop. The flowers are
provided each with a score OF stigmas
and a thousand Stamens-l have counted
them more tnan once, myself-they are
visited by swarms of honey bees and by
other insects, and yet very rarely indeed
is fruit matured Only twice in thirty
years, | believe, has fruit appeared,
very few each time, on the hedge have
just spoken of.
But trees vie with vines and humber
plants in decking themselves in lively
colors. With us in the temperate zone,
the blossoming time OF tree is of neces-
sity short, and it must come generally