double and single flowers from the same root.  In the single forms the size of the flowers varies, the difference being due to cultivation as often as to kind.  I have obtained by far the finest flowers by the following treatment:  In early spring, when the young shoots are about an inch high, cut some off, each with a portion of young root, and plant them singly in deep rich soil, and a sheltered but not shaded situation.  By August each will have made a large bush, branching out from one stalk at the base, with from thirty to forty flowers open at a time, each 5 inches across.  The same plants if well dressed produce good flowers the second season, but after that the stalks become crowded, and the flowers degenerate.  The same treatment suits most of the perennial sunflowers.  The following kinds are mentioned in the order in which they occur in Asa Gray’s book: 

[Illustration:  HELIANTHUS MULTIFLORUS, SHOWING HABIT OF GROWTH.]

ANNUALS.

H. argophyllus (white-leaved, not argyrophyllus, silver-leaved, as written in some catalogues).—­An annual with woolly leaves, neater and less coarse than H. annuus, with which it is said soon to degenerate in gardens if grown together with it.

H. annuus.—­The well known sunflower in endless varieties, one of the most elegant having pale lemon-colored flowers; these, too, liable to pass into the common type if grown in the same garden.

[Illustration:  HELIANTHUS ORGYALIS, SHOWING HABIT OF GROWTH IN AUTUMN.]

H. debilis var. cucumerifolius.—­I have never seen the typical species, but the variety was introduced a few years ago by Mr. W. Thompson, of Ipswich, from whose seed I have grown it.  It becomes 4 feet or 5 feet high, with irregularly toothed deltoid leaves and spotted stalks, making a widely branched bush and bearing well-shaped golden flowers more than 3 inches across, with black disks.  It crosses with any perennial sunflower that grows near it, simulating their flowers in an annual form.  I had a very fine cross with it and H. annuus, but the flowers of this produced no good seed.

[Illustration:  JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE (HELIANTHUS TUBEROSUS).]

PERENNIALS.

H. orgyalis (the fathom-high sunflower).—­The name is far within the true measure, which is often 9 feet or 10 feet.  A very distinct species, increasing very slowly at the root and throwing all its growing efforts upward.  The long linear ribbon leaves, often exceeding a foot, spreading in wavy masses round the tall stem, which has a palm-like tuft of them at the summit, are a more ornamental feature than the flowers, which are moderate in size and come late in the axils of the upper leaves.

[Illustration:  HELIANTHUS ANNUUS GLOBULUS FISTULOSUS.]

H. angustifolius.—­A neat and elegant species, which I first raised from seed sent by Mr. W. Thompson, of Ipswich.  It has a very branching habit quite from the base like a well-grown bush of the common wallflower.  The flowers are abundant, about 21/2 inches across, with a black disk.  The plant, though a true herb, never comes up in my garden with more than one stalk each year.