THE CHRYSANTHEMUM —“YELLOW FLOWER”

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6890, 22 April 1929, Page 11

THE CHRYSANTHEMUM —“YELLOW FLOWER”

. - The'chrysanthemum holds sway at Thanksgiving time's? the.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, it has been bred and improved in a most remarkable way until varieties of wonderful beauty and sizo may adorn the festive boards bn Thanksgiving day. Its colours are appropriate to that season, while at Christmas reds are preferred. In recent years the common types have gained in 1 popularity and the florists are supplying the demand for a cheaper flower than tho large-flowering kinds.. • Although chrysanthemums are highly appreciated in. tho United . Sta.tes, •they have never been as popular there as. in England and are far from being as great favourites as in tho Orient. England has its National Chrysanthemum Society, and the growing of exhibition chrysanthemums is much more in vogue there than in the United States. Whito it ranks as the. fourth among popular flowers in this country, in tho Orient it occupies about the same position as the rose with us. The name chrysanthemum comes from two Greek words meaning yellow flower., v Two native Chinese species figure in the ancestry of the present day f * mums. ’ ’ One is yellow and the other white. These have been intorbrod until great variation in colour, form and size 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 three survive. The large-flowered or florist’s varieties, the hardy pom-poms and the cnemono types havo all been derived from tho same original species. Besides the chrysanthemums of the greenhouses and tho garden, the genus chrysanthemum . includes several other flowers which go by other names, such as the feverfew, tho marguerite, the corn marigold, the mint geranium, the ox-eye ■ daisy and the 'Shasta daisy. These represent '.various- species- of the genus.