This variety produces numerous small flowers from the margin of the calyx of the large central flowers. It is quite ornamental, but of little value as an esculent.
MARJORAM.
Origanum.
Common Marjoram.
Origanum vulgare.
A perennial species, with a shrubby, four-sided stem, a foot and a half high; leaves oval, opposite,—at the union of the leaves with the stalk, there are produced several smaller leaves, which, in size and form, resemble those of the Common Sweet Marjoram; the flowers are pale-red, or flesh-colored, and produced in rounded, terminal spikes; the plants blossom in July and August, and the seeds ripen in September.
Propagation and Culture.—It may be grown from seeds, but is generally propagated by dividing the roots, either in spring or autumn. Set them in a dry and warm situation, in rows fifteen inches apart, and ten or twelve inches from plant to plant in the rows.
The seeds may be sown in a seed-bed in April or May, and the seedlings transplanted to rows as directed for setting the roots; or they may be sown in drills fifteen inches apart, afterwards thinning out the young plants to ten inches apart in the drills.
There is a variety with white flowers, and another with variegated foliage.