Pink

PINK (pingk) is the general name of a huge group of flowering plants recognized to botanists as Dianthus. Many Dianthus flowers are pink, but the name pink is used to explain the scalloped or "pinked" edges of the flower petals. Pinks are typically natives of Europe and Asia, where many kinds have been refined in gardens for centuries.Plants of the pink family have stems with distended joints and leaves rising in pairs on opposite sides of the stems. Flowers of cultivated pinks are white, pink, red, sometimes yellow, and often with stripes. They may be single or double, unaccompanied, or in clusters. Many are sweet-scented.

Cultivated pinks comprise the carnation, grown more in English, gardens than in the United States. Other garden pinks are: fragrant cottage, or grass pinks; small-flowered, mat-forming maiden pinks; sweet-scented clove pinks; fragrant Cheddar pinks, with blue-gray foliage; scentless China pinks, frequently grown as annuals; and bunch pinks, such as sweet William, with intimately clustered flowers.

Pinks are simple to grow in ordinary garden soil. They like sunshine, but do best in moderate and cool climates. Some are annuals, but most are biennials or perennials.
Pinks are grown from seed or cuttings. Some, sweet William, for example, often self-sow and produce year after year in old gardens, or even escape to roadsides and waste places.

Bulb

A bulb is a thick, fleshy bud that typically grows underground. In many plants, such as the tiger lily, it grows above ground, in the mark where the leaves branch from the plant stalk. Bulbs are of two types: the scaly and the tunicate. The scary type bulb as in the majority lilies is made up of a short central core inside of broad, fleshy, scalelike leaves. The tunicate bulb, such as the onion, has fleshy leaf bases in smooth and incessant layers. If an onion is cut in half, the inside looks similar to thickened bands or circles of tissue. Roots usually grow from the base of the bulb. The bulb serves as a storage place with sufficient food and water to provide the plant during winter or a dry period.

The bulb is also a storehouse for new stems, leaves and flowers, after the plant first flowers. In fact, the bulb has in it a new stem and frequently the beginnings of flowers and leaves as well. These are protected inside the bulb by the bulb scales. These scales or leaves are a food storehouse for the plant. The food stored in the bulbs throughout one season is used for the start of the growth of the stem, leaves and flowers during the next season. A number of different kinds of bulbs such as the onion are used for food. Some additional examples of the bulb are the lily bulbs, the tulip bulbs, and the hyacinth.

Chrysanthemum

The word chrysanthemum comes from Creek words that denote gold and flower. The flowers now variety in color from while and yellow through pink and lavender to deep red. The sizes differ from pompons, fewer than an inch across, to blooms 8 inches or more in diameter, there are 15 distinct bloom forms of chrysanthemums, which be different primarily in the shape and arrangement of the petals. Petals may be flat, fluted, quilled, feathery, fringed, or curled. Blossoms may be single, semi-double, or double.

Chrysanthemums flourish in fertile, well-drained soil and full sunlight. They produce from cuttings or root divisions. They are also annual, lasting only one year, or perennial continuing to live from year to year. Gardeners like to grow chrysanthemums because of their diversity of size, shape* and color, The 3000 varieties in cultivation may be alienated into two main types those that are cultivated in a greenhouse and forced for winter bloom and hardy varieties that grow outdoors and bloom in late summer and fall. All chrysanthemums bloom outdoors if they are secluded from frost. The only species of economic significance are certain forms of pyrethrum, Chiysanthemum coccineum. Their flower heads are the basis of pyrethrum powder, an insecticide.

Buckwheat

BUCKWHEAT is a quick-growing yearly plant, full-grown for its shining, three-sided fruits or "grain." The plants are resident in Asia, but are grown also in Europe, Africa, and North America.

Three types of buckwheat are grown:

1 Common buckwheat
2 Tartary buckwheat
3 Notched or Winged buckwheat.

The U.S.S.R. is the world's major producer, followed by France, Poland, Canada, and the United States. Pennsylvania and New York make more than half of the United States crop.

The majority buckwheat is raised for the grain, which is fed to poultry, hogs, or cattle. In the United States and Canada, some is complete into pancake flour and other foods. The straw and hulls are used as mulches to defend the roots of plants

From the flowers bees create buckwheat-flavored honey. The drug rutin is taken as of the leaves and flowers. Rutin is used to decrease high blood pressure and is used in the treatment of emission injury.

Buckwheat also is planted as a smother crop to discontinue weed growth; as a cover crop to stop soil erosion; as "green manure" to add humus to soil; and in elsewhere of-the-way places as feed for game birds and animals.

Gardenia

A favorite shrub, the gardenia has extremely fragrant creamy-white flowers and sleek, dark-green leaves. The genus Gardenia is supposed to have been named after Alexander Garden, a physician in Charleston, South Carolina, through colonial days. Gardenias are an associate of the family Rubiaceae and belong to the genus Gardenia. There are over 200 type of Gardenias. One species is of main importance: Gardenia jasminoides containing many cultivars. Gardenia jasminoides is inhabitant to China although most named cultivars have arisen in cultivation.

Gorgeous, dark of bright green, conflicting leaves on a shrub that can grow 6'-8' with almost equal spread. Leaves are glossy and rubbery. Mature shrubs typically look round, and have a average texture. Blooms in mid-spring to early summer, in excess of a quite long season: this is not a bloom-all-at-once-and-it’s-over shrub! Flowers are white, turning to soft yellow as they age, and have a waxy feel. They have a influential, sweet fragrance, and can perfume an whole room. Air currents waft the scent during the warm summer garden.

Lilacs

Lilacs grow finest in full sunlight, nonacid soil, and anywhere there is high-quality drainage. They require a winter freeze to offer a dormant, or rest, period. Single shrubs, given plenty of room, produce full and tall, attainment a height of 10 to 25 feet. For utmost bloom, however, they have to be kept to a moderate height. Pruning back young growth to keep the center open also helps flowering.

Lilacs belong to the olive family, Oleaceae. The name of the genus, Syringa ("little pipe"), was agreed it because lilac stems were once hollowed out and worn as pipe stems. Syringa is also the common name for an unrelated shrub, the mock orange. The scientific name of the common lilac with purple flowers is Syringa vulgaris; of the Persian lilac, a smaller shrub by means of white flowers, Syringa persica.

Photograph by P. Fukunaga.

The red lehua, blossom of the `ohi`a tree, is the flower of the island of Hawai`i, as designated in 1923 by the Territorial legislature. The plant has many forms, from tall trees to low shrubs, leaves round to narrow and blunt or pointed and smooth or woolly. The flowers are red, rarely salmon, pink, yellow, or white. The wood is hard, good for flooring and furniture, formerly used for images, spears, mallets. It grows abundantly in wet areas. It was believed that picking lehua blossoms would cause rain.