* * * * Relapsed Asters All amateur gardeners at
one time or another have lamented the relapse of beautiful flowers to a simpler and less gorgeous form. The latest of these regrets concerns the aster or Michaelmas daisy. The flower has been, improved out of recognition of late. The varieties differ in colour and size of blossom as well as in height of growth, and gardeners have thus been enabled to compose beds wholly consisting of Michaelmas daisies which nevertheless have the graded variety almost of a mixed herbaceous border. It is, of course, always difficult to be sure of " fixing " a new hybrid or a new sport. A tendency to relapse appears in all sorts of flowers and bushes. A variegated privet may become green, a Senecio Maritima lose its silver sheen, and after a seeding or two hollyhocks become purple and Shirley poppies scarlet and black. Possibly some Michaelmas daisies have been put on the market before they were fixed ; but a number of the best remain singularly true and are more easily kept fine and large than perhaps any other herbaceous plant. Inci- dentally it is well worth while growing them from seed.
W. BEAM THOMAS.
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