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The Rudbeckia
Rudbeckia hirta.
HARDY herbaceous plants have been rising in public favour during the past ten years or so, but they will never so entirely engross the admiration of the English amateur as certain over-zealous advocates believe and desire. The world is tolerably wise as to what it wants, and it is useless for specialists to go crazy because the world will not implicitly follow their lead. The truth is, the English garden is a rafter of the English household made up of good things from all parts of the world, and the pelargoniums of the Cape and the calceolarias of Peru are as worthy of a place in it as the lilies of the Levant or the fuchsias of the Falklands. People who enter upon gardening as a recreation are usually eclectic in their tastes, and are very quick in distinguishing good things from bad ones, and those who seek applause by crying up herbaceous weeds and crying down bedding plants that make the garden grandly gay in the sunny months when gaiety is needed, will only obtain in the end the pitying smile that is bestowed on the well-meaning fanatic. The Rudbeckias illustrate this case. They are hardy herbaceous, handsome weedy things, that would be of priceless value were we possessed of only a few dozen sorts of garden flowers. But as we can command thousands we can afford to be dainty, and so it happens that two or three species of Rudbeckia are enough for any ordinary garden: the rest may be left over for those omnivorous ones who swallow everything that can be described as "herbaceous" and "hardy." The genus to which our plant belongs takes its name from O. Rudbeck, a Swedish botanist. It is wholly American. It is noted in the "Hortus Kewensis" of Aiton that R. laciniata was grown by John Tradescant before 1640, and R. triloba by Jacob Bobart before 1699. These appear to have been the earliest introduced. R. hirta, the subject of the coloured plate, was grown in this country in 1714, and is pretty widely distributed, although the members of this genus have never ranked high as border flowers. They are, however, useful, being at home in any soil or situation, though preferring, if they can get it, a dry sandy loam and a sunny situation. They are all perennial plants, and may be propagated by division and seed. Being rough and gay and conspicuous at a distance, they are admirably adapted for the front line of the shrubbery, and if they do not delight the florists, they will gratify the artists, who always lean considerately towards single composite flowers, if there be some degree of dash in them, as there certainly is in the yellow and orange flowers of the Rudbeckias.
Rudbeckia California grows to the height of five feet, and flowers in July; the flowers are of a golden-yellow colour. R. Drummondi is of dwarf habit, rising only two feet, flowering from June to September, the flowers rich deep yellow with a band of purplish-brown and a curious brown centre; this is a fine plant. R. fulgida rises two feet; the flowers appear in July, they are orange-yellow, the disk purple; a fine plant. R. hirta grows two to three feet in height, the flowers appear from July to September; they are of a rich orange-yellow, the disk purplish-brown. R. laciniata is of compact habit, height three feet, flowers pale yellow, the leaves elegantly cut; a fine plant. R. speciosa is of medium growth, rarely exceeding two and a half feet in height; the flowers appear late, they are orange-yellow with blackish-purple disk. About a dozen more may be found by those who want them--at all events, their names may--but it might be difficult to obtain the plants.
The American continent is somewhat profusely sprinkled with composite plants that flower in the later summer and autumn, and prove perfectly hardy with us. We want the best of them for our gardens, and perhaps there are not many remaining to be introduced, for the botanists have not been idle on the "boundless prairies." It is the peculiar characteristic of a large majority of these plants that they flower at a season when our native plants are for the most part in a seedy state; and thus they help us through the autumn, when out-door pleasures obtain more of our attention than at any other time. The botanist in whose honour the Rudbeckia was named by Linnaeus was the son of John Rudbeck, a learned Swedish bishop, who aided very materially in the publication of the Swedish Bible, commonly called the Bible of Gustavus Adolphus, in the year 1618, and was the author of the celebrated "Privilegia quaedam Doctorum," the production of which, in the year 1636, very nearly proved his ruin. His son Olaf Rudbeck, born 1630, studied at Upsala, and in 1652 held a disputation there on the circulation of the blood, and afterwards made discoveries in anatomy which he rendered public in 1653. In this year he travelled into Holland, but soon after returned to Upsala, where he was, in the year 1658, appointed professor of medicine. As an aid in this study he had previously established a botanical garden, into which he introduced many rare plants from distant places, and thereby afforded an astonishing example of the capabilities of a northern climate.
