And in a better, higher sphere
Thine inner beauty doth appear,
And thy developed soul shall be
Violet-sweet eternally.
—Beth Max.
These lines were suggested by a spathe of the skunk cabbage sent me by my brother, W. S. Ripley, of Wakefield, Mass., who mentioned in his letter to me when the specimen was sent that he stopped “to watch the bees go in at the aperture on one side of the spathe, and listened to their loud humming inside, as they laid on their load of pollen.” In Thoreau’s “Early Spring in Massachusetts,” page 172, in writing of this plant he says: “All along under that bank I heard the hum of honey bees in the air, attracted by this flower. Especially the hum of one within a spathe sounds deep and loud.”
THE NEW FRENCH CANNAS.
I do not know of any class of plants that have attracted so much attention or have been so much admired during the past season as the new large flowering French cannas. And for effectiveness on lawns in large beds or masses, or as single specimens in the mixed border, nothing can be more tropical and impressive. They are really plants for everybody as they are entirely free from insect pests, and require but little care and attention to grow them to perfection. They succeed well in all kinds of weather, wet or dry, and are not injured in the least by the severe storms of wind and rain that we so often experience during the summer season.
They bloom without intermission from June until they are destroyed by frost; the spikes of large flowers somewhat resemble gladiolus but are really more effective and showy as their brilliant colors show so grandly against their tropical foliage. Most, if not all, of the varieties grow on an average about three feet in height, and the flowers range in color from deep crimson to pure yellow, including all the intermediate shades, many being so beautifully marked that they are frequently compared to orchid flowers.