Los Angeles herald., 1910-02-20


garden in the fall that we can hardly
believe that the beautiful forms have
been developed only within the last
century.
The first plants were cultivated al
most at the same time in England and
in France in the year 1890, and for
thirty years gardeners in both coun-
tries were selecting and improving IT.
The first exhibition of these wonderful
flowers was given in 1925, but it was
twenty years before competitive shows
were inaugurated, and today this sec
ton has reached a very high state of
perfection and is cultivated by hum
dreds of thousands.
Groups
The groups of chrysanthemumS are
divided into the incurved, which are
those in which the floIets curve up
ward and inward toward the center;
the recurVed or reflex, in which the
forets curve outward and downward
from the center; the anemone OF
uuilled, in which the outer fiorets are
rap-shaped, the inner ones tubular
and closely packed together; the POM
pom or daisy lowered, which nave
small flowers, numerous forets, strap
shaped and mostly reflexed; the Jap
anese, which have flowers large and
loose, with long dropping torets
twisted or untwisted, smooth or hairy
or threadlike.
When November comes and all the
world is abloom with chrysanthemums
ranging in size from button TO dlh-
ner plate, the admiring world looks on
but largely without an understanding
of the processes that have gone to-
ward making possible this wealth OF
varied form and color. Few are aware
of the fact that all these blossoms came
ORIGINALLY from a wild flower of CHINA
belonging to the daisy family and dll-
fering little from that star OF the open
fields. Still fewer know that the prize
winners in the chrysanthemum shows
from Maine to California have been
housed up and stall-fed in manner
that is little different from the course
of treatment that comes to the kine
and swine that wear away the plue
ribbon.
Fifty years ago there was but one
kind of chrysanthemum in the WoT4u'
1t grew wild in interior China and at
tracted the attention of an Englishman
travelling abroad. He carried it home
and began it's development. 1t re-
sponded readily to cultivation and was
taken up by a number of gardeners
in England and Japan. Each deVe4op7u
the flower along some line that TOOK
his fancy and led it into strange forms
that II naQ never hiOWil III lhO VI ioiA'''
The results were deep bronzes and pure
whites, clusters of buttons and the
great single flower that measures ten
inches across.
Later these growers began to eX-
change plants and to hypridlZe them'
unlike parents yielding an onsprlng
that was entirely different from either
Today there are all colors and mix
ture of them all. There are long petals
and short ones petals that turn up ana
those that turn down. The pollen OF
anv one of these freak chrysanthe-
NUNS may be shaken into the bloom
of the other and the plant resulting
will be something new and diferent.
The grower has a mystery on ms
hands until the young plant comes 10
bloom and then a surprise. New Varle-
ties are in this way being gotten every
wear and the end is not yet, for fifty
years is. a short period in which to de-
velop a new plant. The development
If the daisy of the field into the present
form of the chrysanthemum is prop
ably but a prophecy of the WonderIul
blooms of the future.
Inst now the attention of the Amerl-
can, florist is chiefly centered upon the
development of size in the chrysanthe-
mum. This is where the element OF
care and feeding plays its chiet part.
The appearance of prize winner at
a show means that the plant that
bore this individual bloom mas peen