CHRYSANTHEMUMS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 102, 4 May 1929, Page 19

CHRYSANTHEMUMS

MOST POPULAR DECORATION The chrysanthemum holds sway now as thu most popular flower of* the season. Its yellow and bronze colours are sought when the country is celebrating its golden harvest of wheat and corn. Coming to us originally from China, is has been bred and improved in a most remarkable way until varieties of wonderful beauty and size may adorn the festive boards on Thanksgiving Day. its colours are appropriate to that season, while at Christinas reds are preferred. In recent years the common types have gained in popularity and the florists are supplying the demand for a cheaper flower than the large-flowering kinds. Although chrysanthemums are highly appreciated in the United States, they have never been as popular there as in England, and are far from bciug as j great favourites as in the Orient. England has its National Chrysanthemum Society, and the. growing of exhibition chrysanthemums is much more in voguethere than in the United States. "While it ranks as the fourth among popular tlowers in this country, in the- Orient it occupies about the same position as the rose with us. The name chrysanthemum comes from two Greek words meaning yellow flower. Two nativo Chinese species figure in the ancestry of the- present day "mums." One is yellow and tho other white. These have been interbred until great variation in colour, form, and sizo has been produced. So extensive- has been the- improvement that our modern varieties bear little resemblance to the original sorts growing wild in China, and Japan. Varieties have been produced by the thousand, yet out of each year's new productions at most only two or threo survive. Tlio large flowered or florist's varieties, the hardy pom-poms and tho anemone types have all been derived from the same original species. .Besides the chrysanthemums of tho greenhouses and the garden, the gemis chrysanthemum includes several other flowers which go by other names, such as the feverfew, the marguerite, the corn marigold, the mint geranium, the ox-eye daisy and the Shasta daisy. These represent various species of the genus.