Evening star., 1937-12-12
By Will p. Kennedy.
~ONGRESS is prepared to give
q hiey N1,r; ctx,ao~ vao p<r ssVEYn

)ONGRESS Is prepared 70 give
a big Christmas party. I'VE,
the people," from all over
~ the country, are being in
vited to a flower show of more than
10000 poinsettia blooms. $500 cy-
clamen plants, in eight varieties,
with an average Of 10 or more blooms
each, and hundreds of sweet-scented
stevia serrata. This display is to be
in the exhibition conservatory of the
Botanic Garden, at the foot of
Capitol Hill, convenient for tourists,
between First and Second streets,
Independence and Maryland ave-
nues. The plants are already COM
ing into luxurious bloom.
Senate Leader Alben w. Barkley
Democrat, Of Kentucky is oficially
in charge of this holiday party, as
chairman of the Joint Committee on
the Library. which operates the Bo-
tanic Garden. The other hosts to
the people, members of the joint
committee, are: Senators Kenneth
Mcclellan, Democrat, of Tennessee,
and Elmer Thomas, Democrat, of
Oklahoma; Representatives Kent E.
Keller, Democrat, of Illinois; Gra-
ham A. Barden, Democrat, of North
Carolina; Robert T. Secrest, Demo-
crat, Of Ohio; Bert Lord, Republican,
OF New York, and Allen T. Tread
way, Republican, Of Massachusetts.
The director of the Botanic Gar
den is David Lynn, architect of the
Capitol, who has placed in actual
charge William A. Frederick, who
for % years has been landscape gar
dener for the Capitol grounds and
other buildings in the legislative
group, including the Library Of Con-
gress and the new Supreme Court
Building. The assistant director is
Wilmer j. Paget, who has been on
the job for 81 years. The leading
botanists in the Government service
and In the commercial field are in
frequent conferences with these
gardeners for Congress"
There has been very general COM
mendation from the Nations prin-
cipal growers and from the garden
clubs Of America Of the remarkable
development in the Botanic Garden
since Congress two and q half years
ago actually took over the Job of
building up one of the outstanding
gardens of the world.
THIS Christmas flower show will
really be "coming-out party" !"
the new Botanic Garden coming out
OF its chrysalis. It will inaugurate
new program not only for an an
nual event, but q series of seasonal
shows throughout the year.
One big objective of the Botanic
Garden under the new regime is "to
have something continuously in
flower of interest to the public" Its
real purpose is to build up q museum
OF plant life, as complete as possible.
Already 1t has q number Of collec-
tions that rank with the best, and
are constantly being improved by &C.
cessions. The Botanic Garden is
now ready to display its treasures
and all that is lacking for the lars-
est flower shows ever held in this
country is adequate show-houses.
The new conservatory has q long
and spacious main corridor and eieht
large compartments, but these are
already rather crowded with valua-
bic specimens and collections,
The idea Of seasonal flower shows
was given a preliminary try-out last
year with an exhibition of azaleas,
which attracted much attention. Then
last month there was a very modest
chrysanthemum display Of about 50
types OF pompon plants-but in this
the Bontanic Garden has no thought
OF rivaling the annual Mum" show
OF the Department Of Agriculture,
which has been held for more than
80 years.
The second show in the seasonal
series will be the azalea exhibition in
February and March, which will run
for flve Or six weeks. There are now