Fl 



owers 



in colour. The reverse experiment is equally true, 

 for natives of the mountains become pale and dull in 

 colour in the heavier lowland climate. 



The most vivid crimsons, flaring yellows, blues and 

 purples are a very marked character in most open 

 floras, but above all other places it is the limestone 

 hills near Alexandria which the reader should visit if 

 he desires really to understand the possibilities of 

 flower colours. It is a semi-desert, and probably 

 resembles many parts of Palestine. There one finds 

 bright yellow composites, scarlet poppies and ranun- 

 culus, the orange-red of calendula, quantities of star- 

 of-Bethlehem, of moraeas and antirrhinums which, 

 though often only 4 inches high, vary in the most 

 extraordinary way from yellow, with or without orange 

 or golden-brown marks, to mauves and blues. Every 

 plant almost ends in flowers, and there is no turf or 

 dense foliage to conceal them. 



On the other hand, want of sunshine may arrest the 

 formation of flowers and preserve them as tiny cleisto- 

 gamous self-fertilising buds which are scarcely or not 

 at all coloured. These are, according to Goebel, often 

 formed as a result of weak or insufficient light, though 

 anything which starves or hinders the plant from 

 growing properly may produce them.^ 



Just as sunshine and pure air seems to be respon- 

 sible for many of the brilliant colours of flowers, so 

 also perfumes are said to be especially strong and 

 rich under the same conditions. Sunshine and pure 

 mountain air distinguish those places in the near East 

 where whole villages live by the preparation of attar-of- 

 roses.*^ In sunny Spain,^ whole woods are fragrant 

 with the scent of laurel, and the winds from Corsica 

 are also real spicy breezes, which can be smelt a long 

 way off shore. 



113 H 



