18 THE FLOEAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



two whole summer months you will have a glowing carpet of 

 colour, in which the brightest dyes will blend and mingle to form 

 softest, harmonious, and boldest contrasts. 



At p. 219 of last year's volume of the Floeal Woeld is a list 

 of the best known varietiea^of ranunculuses. C. T. 



LADIES' FLOWERS. 



BT MR. W. ROBINSON, EOYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, REGENT* S PARK. 



|ADIES' Flowers! The name sounds odd. Surely all 

 flowers have hitherto been beloved of ladies. But 

 having used the name, we must find the flowers — ladies' 

 flowers " to the manner born." "What shall we choose ? 

 The queen of flowers, the rose ? ISTo, no ! it would not 

 do for me to enter the " Kose Garden" in an establishment con- 

 ducted by Mr. SLiirley Hibberd, at least not without serving an 

 apprenticeship to him. The gaudy flowers of the summer garden — 

 the geraniums, and calceolarias, and petunias ? No ; we will not 

 waste time upon Birmingham ware while the finest filigree work of 

 silver is at hand. Many things suggest themselves both for indoor 

 and outdoor gardening, but chief and above all there is one. This 

 is a dull, breezeless December day, a leaden day, a cloudy London 

 December day, but high up and afar ofl" there is a little rent in the 

 grey canopy, and through it peeps the blue of heaven. It brings a 

 little vision of a sunny spring day, of blue-bells and primroses, 

 violets and forget-me-nots, and of spring flowers generally. I will 

 write of them ; — 



" Spring's early flowers, spring's early flowers. 

 How beautiful ye seem, 

 All pure and bright, like hope's gay light, 

 Aid sweet as love's first dream. 



Fragrant dwellers of the lea, 



When first the wild wood rings 

 With each sound of vernal minstrelsy, 



When fi'esh the green grass springs. 



"What can the blessed spring restore 

 More gladd'ning than your charms ? 

 Bringing the memory once more 

 Of lovely fields and farms 1" 



SPRING FLOWERS. 



The flowers of spring, apart from tlieir own delicate beauty and 

 purity of colour, possess a peculiar charm for many other reasons. 

 They come when we are tired of the fireside, and when the charm of 

 indoor winter recreation — pleasant enough to think of in autumn — 

 is quite gone. Flowers, a scarcity to many, and when everybody is 

 filled with some of that rapture w'hich nature displays when the 

 folded buds thrust out their little hands into the ray, " when first 



