About Chrysanthemums

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 99, 12 February 1891, Page 4

About Chrysanthemums

A' chrysanthemum fete was held at tue .Royal Aquarium, Loudon, just before the last mail was despatched. AV noteworthy feature connected with the festival was the add i ess of welcome to -Lady Brooke, by whom the opening ceremony was .performed, in which had been embodied a history -6f /tlie , flower in i whwse honor th« was promoted. By it visitors were reruindod that the •o ■i{rmtU~chryßaulaemurn came from 'China, and that the lovely little «ponipon7 which many amateur fanciers still hold to be the best of all, is a r civilised edition of the Chusan daisy, brought to England by Mr .Robert Fortune in 1846. It was this gentleman-- also who, some years later, introduced in England the beautiful Japanese types, 'with their diversity of form and rich variety of -colors With tue address was pie«ented to Lady-Brooke the Centenary •edition of the National Chrysanthemum Society's catal «gue, which (the Daily News'obseives) " lovers of the ."flower will find a nio&t useful haud~book' relating to its history, bibliography, development, and classification up to date; It contains a list of over < 3,000 'vaiieties alphabetically eriauged, ' and the catalogue .seems to be still growing, since there is a supplemented list of over 200 novelties put in to commence, ■.tfus season for the first lime. The Exhibition taught the spectator who *was"u'ot aware of the fact, that (.here is no flower known 'to him that presents such a maiked difference or foim. Amongst the visitors at the opening ceremouy were many who required a considerable amount of convincing before they would believe .that the huge blooms 9in in diameter were of the same branch of the same family as the tiny pompons, or that lie 1 globular, compact, '" incurved "pecimeus were iv close kinship with such -anemone varieties as those, for example, with which Mr Jukes, the vice-eh'dirmun, won a first prize. The .newest 1 tashion is a- single chrysanthemum, and in that form it very closely resembles its first parent, the daisy. One white exhibit, indeed, might easily pass for a somewhat coarse Maiguerite." The paper quoted adds: — But we. may not forget that there was a craze onceof a single dahlia The fashiou thete is sow 'going back to the old style, and we^falicy the same course will be reverted to with the chVysauthemuui. This, I , however, is heresy, -at present, and r such an opinion amongst conDoisseuis i of an enthusiastic kind would be a iash undei taking."