THE CHRYSANTHEMUM —“YELLOW FLOWER”

Shannon News, 4 June 1929, Page 4

THE CHRYSANTHEMUM —“YELLOW FLOWER”

The chrysanthemum holds sway at the present time as the most popular flower of the season. Coming to us originally from Ch»ia, it has been breu and improved in a most, remarkable wav until varieties ;of wonderful beauty and size are to be seen. > Although chrysanthemums are . highly appreciated in the United States, they have never been as popular there as in England and are far from being as great favourites as in the-Orient. England has its National Chrysanthemum Society, and the growing of exhibition chrysanthemums is much more in vogue there than in the United States.

The name chrysanthemum-cornea from, two Greek words meaning yellow flower. Two native Chinese species figure in the ancestry of the present day ‘ 4 mums. ” One is yellow and the other white. These have been interbred 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 cnemone types have all been derived from the same original species.

Besides the chrysanthemums of the greenhouses and the garden, the genus chrysanthemum includes several ether 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.