Aug. 1, 1SG9.] 



HARDWICKE'S SC IE N CE-GOS SI P. 



1G9 



THE CULTIVATION AND IMPKOVEMENT OF WILD 

 FLOWEES FOE GAEDEN DECOEATION. 



UST as if we had 

 not plenty of 

 flowers already 

 in our gardens ! 

 Why, our flower- 

 beds glow with 

 gems from every 

 part of the world; 

 and, surely, these are gay 

 enough and varied enough to 

 please the most fastidious. 

 What more do we want ? 

 And then, how presumptuous 

 to talk of the "improve- 

 ment " of wild flowers. As 

 if the 



" Primrose stars in shadowy 

 grass," 



that deck the hedge-banks in 

 spring ; or the 



" Daisies pied, and Violets blue, 



And Lady-smocks all silver white, 

 And Cuckoo-buds of golden hue," 



" Paint the meadows with delight," 



and all the bright blossoms that light up the woods 

 with their beauty, could by any possibility be made 

 more lovely than we find them ! Well, I have 

 known and loved them all too long to wish them 

 other than they are in their native haunts. I think 

 one of the finest floral sights I know is a wood car- 

 peted with sylvan Eorget-me-nots, such as we have 

 here in the north, and I would rather go miles to 

 see it than to see a fashionable floral device of 

 rerilla, Geranium, and Calceolaria, with variegated 

 walks of brickdust, slate clappings, and pounded 

 shells. I think a hedge-bank dotted over with the 

 bright flowers of Geranium Robertiamim or Lychnis 

 dioica, or blue with Veronica Chamcedrys — " Angel's 

 Eyes" and "Bonnie Bird Een"— as our simple 

 country folk so lovingly call it — is one of the 

 No. 56. 



that 



prettiest sights one can see. I only want to "im- 

 prove " flowers for garden decoration ; and here, 1 

 think, there is no rpicstion but that even the Forget- 

 me-not and the Geranium, if transplanted into a 

 garden, would suffer by comparison with some of 

 their more showy neighbours. In such a situation, 

 the Forget-me-not would not be any less beautiful 

 if the flowers were double the size, or the Geranium 

 if it had three times as many blossoms. 



But a great many of our favourite garden plants 

 have been improved, and are very different from 

 their original wild forms. The hybrid Pelargoniums, 

 that make such a show in our conservatories, are 

 very different from, and. much more beautiful than, 

 the few narrow-leaved species that one sees figured 

 in the early numbers of Curtis's Botanical Magazine 

 of eighty years ago. Most of the splendid Fuchsias 

 have been " improved " from the old-fashioned F. 

 coccinea and F. globosa — lovely plants in their way 

 — but not to be compared with the grand flowers 

 that have been derived from them. The old Hearts- 

 ease, Shakespeare's "Love in Idleness," is so 

 pretty a little flower, that all sorts of loving names 

 have been given to it, and it is one of the best 

 plants for a rockery that I know; but it can 

 scarcely vie with the gorgeous, velvety Pansies 

 that one admires so much at a flower-show. "A 

 noble savage " is very interesting in his own 

 prairies, but an educated gentleman is a pleasanter 

 companion than the noblest savage that ever painted 

 his face or danced a war-dance ; and I think that, 

 just as we educate a man to make him fit for 

 civilized society, so when we bring wild flowers into 

 civilized places, they are none the worse for a little 

 education and refinement. 



But what need is there to cultivate them and im- 

 prove them at all, seeing that we have already suffi- 

 cient for all our requirements ? Tt is just because I 

 think that there is room for more that I am writing 

 this chapter : just because I think that though there 

 are a great many exotic bedding plants, quite beau- 



