Evening star., 1932-04-19
Every flower has a history.

Every flower has a. history.
Every shrub its literature.
The moment one becomes interested
in plant or bush, or tree. or even blade
f, of grass he is on the high road to dis
coveries of a sort.
One of the most interesting Of these
revelations to an amateur home gar
dener is the facL that one should use
the plural rather than the singular.
It is not 1.-The lilac" but 'lilacs."
1t will not do to think merely OF
petunias. but one should realize that
there are scores of varieties OF them.
Even the humble zinnia, unfortunate
ly still regarded as stiff. ugly flower
by too many. may be purchased in up
ward of rs different named varieties.
X X = \
The amateur who becomes interested
in the study of the lilac. for instance,
will find out shortly that he has stepped
into an entire garden.
No longer can he think Of the lilac as
just one lilac.
There are scores Of different lilacS,
most Of them bringing with them a
magic human name. that of Lemoine,
wno, father and son, originated them.
At their nursery in Nancy. France
(whence came Emile Coue, who dealt
with the human spirit), these two
hybridizers turned lilac into lilacs, and
forced the flower lovers Of the world to
think plurally instead of singularly.
Magic names i'll fiowerland, those of
Victor and Emile Lemoine. AS long as
peonies, successors to the cherished
'pinies" Of grandmother's garden, exist
in a fower-loving world men and
women will love their two great blooms
lie Cygne and Solange.
Some one has said OF the fragrance
of the lilac that it is "the very heart
and soul of memory"
This can be accepted by more people,
perhaps, than most such general state
ments.
Publicity has done its magic &-tk fol
the cherry trees; thousands upor thou
sands come to Washington to view
them.
But in every village, in every town, in
every city, on every farm, thousands
upon thousands of flower friends wait
this month through, in the hope oi
smelling the lilacs again.
Few flowers Of any sort, especially In
America, are so closely associated with
the home as the lilac. Its sturdy
bushes grow to be many feet high and
scores OF years old. There are authentic
lilacs in the United States which are
centenarians. and no doubt there are
individual clumps much older.
X X 4
The lilac has been mixed up in one
OF the most curious misunderstadings
in the public mind.
Althogh 1t has been grown for CEN
turtles, Its recording as a botanical speci-
men by scientific men has been q mat
ter Of the last 800 years. As a matter
OF fact, It was cultivated in the gardens
of Europe many, many years before II
was discovered as a wild shrub growing
in Rumania.
So meager was the true knowledge
OF this plant that in some inexplica-
BILE way its scientific name, Syringa, got
transferred In the public mind to the
Ph1ladelphus, or mock orange.
Even today hundreds of flower lovers
call the mock orange the syringa, OF
sweet syringa. Especially is this the
common name, almost, in small towns
the country over.
This Misrepresentation came about
partly because Of the similarity of leaf
and general structure, and particularly
because both the lilac (Which Is the
real and only syringa) and the mock
orange leaf out very early.
n
When one says that there are many
lilacs, not just one. he should keep ii,
, mind. however, that for thousands of
nome gardeners there is but one, after
all, and that Is syringa vulgaris. the
so-called common lilac.