Chrysanthemum Forms: A Guide to Diversity

Have you ever seen chrysanthemums planted to utilize the contrast in their different flower forms? 

Probably not! Because most gardeners who grow mums are more conscious of their colors than their shapes.

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Wonderful effects, however, can be attained by choosing from the many forms available—incurves, reflexes, pompons, buttons, singles, anemones, quills, and spiders and nothing’s to stop you from growing them, at least if your climate is no worse than New York’s.

Allowing for the enthusiasm of the specialist, it is still safe to say that no flower can excel the chrysanthemum in the diversity of form of bloom: the size varies from ½” to 12″ or more inches; all colors except blue are found; there are innumerable blends both on the face and on the reverse of the petals, and habit of growth varies front tall, columnar sorts to low cushions. 

Here is diversity in abundance for use by the artist, whether in the creation of garden compositions or arrangements.

Striking Monochrome Plantings

We believe that a monochrome planting featuring variety in the type of bloom could be made that would be more striking, more interesting, and even in better taste than one where variety in color is the attraction. 

For convenience, we have introduced the word synanthy to mean the use of floral elements either in the garden or in arrangement. It is the art of combining diverse floral elements to make a harmonious whole.

Design Principles For Chrysanthemum Compositions

Everyone agrees that a composition in any medium must have a central appeal, a focal point.

Blooms of outstanding size may take the center of interest, that is, about the other blooms of the unit, or a striking bloom form may be used. 

This should be a form not occurring elsewhere in the unit and, if possible, one that is not widely grown. 

Line may be indicated by using a different bloom form from that used in the body of the planting. 

Repetition and rhythm may be achieved by using the same bloom form in different sizes or by the same size in different types. 

The bloom form or size would be different from that in the body of the planting. The texture is determined by the predominant bloom from the size of the bloom and by diversity in the heights of the different elements. Practical examples are shown in the diagram at the bottom of this page.

Training and Molding Chrysanthemum

There is an opportunity for the expression of appreciation of form and horticultural ability if one molds the blooming surface to a predetermined form. Variety in the method of training plants acids much to the planting.

Choosing Varieties

There is still ample time this fall to make a note of the varieties that will give the desired results, but keeping the number of varieties down in any single planting for this will permit enough to make a show and avoid spottiness.

Garden and Greenhouse Chrysanthemums

In the popular mind, there are only two classes of chrysanthemums: the garden or hardy type and the greenhouse type. 

Hybridizers, conscious of northern gardeners’ needs, have advanced the blooming date so that September and even August-blooming chrysanthemums are common. 

They have also increased winter hardiness somewhat, but beyond this, there is little reason for the sharp division into these two groups. 

Many varieties of the “garden” chrysanthemum are grown by commercial growers both in and out of greenhouses, and most varieties of “greenhouse” chrysanthemums can be and are being grown outdoors.

Understanding The Recognized Bloom Types

The American National Chrysanthemum Society recognizes 15 different types based on bloom form. 

To understand these bloom types, one must remember that chrysanthemum blooms are composed of many florets held together in a head. 

Each tiny floret has a corolla, a pistil, and some with stamens. The bloom of the wild chrysanthemum is daisy-like. 

The outside or ray florets have straplike corollas and a pistil. The central disk, usually yellow, consists of many florets with tiny urn-shaped corollas and both a stamen and pistil. The group is called the disk. and the florets disk florets.

Modification of either the ray, the disk florets, or both brings about all the different blooming types. There is also great variation in the number of the florets, from 100 in some to nearly 1,000 in others.

15 Bloom-Type Classes

Following is a brief description of these 15 bloom-type classes with a few words about what each will do and what they should not be expected to do.

Class 1. SINGLES

Well-known daisy type, a type of the wild chrysanthemum. Exhibition blooms should have no more than five rows of ray florets. Full seasonal range varieties bloom from early September through December. 

Earlier ones are garden varieties, mostly about 3″ inches in diameter, with colors apt to be fleeting and bloom substance-poor. 

Varieties blooming from late October on developed for the trade have good bloom substance and color. These range from 34″ to 5″ inches in diameter.

It is not suitable as an entire planting, but a few works into the design will lend airiness. Also useful when working with texture.

Class 2. SEMI DOUBLES

A group rather than a class composed of breeders’ near misses. Some are too double to be single, others too single to be double. 

Characterized by more than five rows of ray florets with prominent disks. Should be used as the group they most closely resemble.

Class 3. REGULAR ANEMONES and Class 4. IRREGULAR ANEMONES

Similar to the singles, except that the disk has become a hemispherical “cushion” through the elongation of the disk florets. 

In neither class should there be more than five rows of ray florets. Regular anemones. Corollas of ray florets are usually short, broad, and flat, regularly spaced about cushion. Blooms vary in size from 4″ to 4″ or 6″ inches in diameter.

Corollas of the ray florets in Irregular Anemones may vary in length and are apt to be narrower in proportion to their length, pointed, and irregularly spaced.

Except for a few Korean hybrids, they are rather late. Few varieties bloom before October 25; the prime season is early and mid-November. Koreans are irregular and bloom in late September.

Anemones have a more formal effect than Singles. Larger forms may be used as focal points or as accents in less important places. Larger ones should be disbudded to two or three blooms per plant, intermediate and small ones good as sprays.

Class 5. POMPONS

The most formal, and where climate permits, the most generally useful class. Fully double, only the straplike corollas show. The disk does not. Petals are relatively short, broad, and usually rounded at tin. 

They are incurved and regularly overlapping. Except for some of the smallest, all tend to assume a globular shape. The smallest are flattened and button-like. Blooming season is about the same as anemones.

Class 6. INCURVES

The football mum. Globular in shape with broad incurving petals completely covering the disk. 

The height of the season is from October 20 through November 20, a few before. 

The chief drawback is the great amount of rainwater held in blooms. Outstanding as accents and for the center of interest. Grown without disbudding or disbudded sprays used in masses.

Class 7. IRREGULAR INCURVES

Similar to regular incuries, but petals are twisted and irregularly overlapping. This gives them a somewhat softer appearance. It is not too successfully grown outdoors unless given protection.

Class 8 DECORATIVE POM POMS

Similar to Pompons in appearance and use. Petals are reflexed. Not considered as distinguished as an incurved pompon. Desirable characteristics are earliness and red color. A useful group.

Class 9. DECORATIVES

Aster-flower type. Most double garden varieties belong to this group. Petals are pointed and usually longer and narrower than decorative pom poms, resulting in a larger and flatter bloom. They are fully double, with no disk evident. 

A wide variety of colors and varieties bloom from August on. All will be in bloom by the first week in October. Disadvantages are a tendency towards fleeting colors and poor bloom substance, but they are a necessity in any planting to bloom before October 10.

Class 10. REGULAR REFLEXES, and Class 11. IRREGULAR REFLEXES

Correspond to Classes 6 and 7 in characteristics and uses except that petals are reflexed instead of incurved.

Class 12. SPOON SINGLES

Similar in form and use to Class 1, except that the ray petals are tubular or quilled with an open tip that is spoonlike. They give a sparkling effect.

Class 13. QUILLS

Spoon doubles. All florets which show are spoonlike. A quilled portion of the petal is straight so that the bloom shape is spherical, with spike-like petals radiating from the base. 

When the shaft of the petal is thin or limber, the bloom is apt to become tassel-like. Useful as accents and center of interest.

Class 14. THREADS, and Class 15. SPIDERS

Petals are usually completely tubular or quilled. In Threads, the tips are curved. In Spiders, they terminate in a definite hook. 

Disks may or may not be evident. In general, there is so much variation in form that a precise definition of the groups is impossible.

Despite its delicate appearance, some varieties are more resistant to storm damage than many of the garden varieties. For outdoor plantings, select open varieties with thick tubes showing a distinct disk.

44659 by Ernest L. Scott