TULIPA. 



precedence, with the smaller and more dainty species especially suited 

 to the rock-garden ; and pass by on the other side of the more 

 ascertainable catalogue-species and the most obscure group of Neo- 

 Tulips that has apparently erupted quite newly from tho soil ot 

 Italy and swum unbeknown into the ken of bewildered botanists. 



T. australis is often sent out under the name of T. Cdsiana. It is 

 a lovely thing of some 6 or 10 inches, quite like our own T. sylvestris, 

 but not so tall, and with all the segments of tho goblet, sepals and 

 petals alike, of the same size, and shaded heavily on the outside witli 

 brown. In cultivation it is very widespread and popular, blooming 

 early in the season and spreading readily. In nature, too, it is very 

 widespread, in the higher alpine meadows of the South, and varies 

 greatly ; in particular there is a dwarf form that clinibs high in the 

 Maritimes and earns its varietal name of T. a. alpestris. It is 

 wonderful to stand under the pale darkness of a cloud on the rolling 

 bare moors above the Boreon in July, when the brown sere turf is 

 illuminated in the gloom with many million little sparks of lemony 

 light from the cups of the Tulip standing bold and erect in their 

 galaxies on delicate stems of 2 or 3 inches. 



FIRST GROUP: NAKED FILAMENTS AND CONE-SHAPED 

 FLOWERS. 



T. Oculus soils is the stalwart Sun's Eye scarlet Tulip of the South, 

 standing sturdily 10 mches or a foot in height, and early in blossom. 



T. praecox is that other surprising great 12- or 15-inch Tulip of 

 Southern vineyards, the outsides of whose flowers are blurred and dead 

 and dull in the flat -sided triangular-looking bud, like the underside 

 of a butterfly's wing, in no way preparing one for the satiny fury of 

 pure scarlet that presently unfolds, staring out into the world with a 

 menacing wide pupil of blackness. It may stand for a type of the 

 even more inspiring glories, alike within and without, of the similarly 

 sturdy novelties, TT. Tibergeniana, Fosteriana, Miqueliana, and 

 Wilhnottiae, so savagely blazing at the end of Spring that eye 

 can scarcely bear the furnaces of their vast expanded flowers under 

 the sun. 



T. montana (T. armeniaca -and T. Boissieri, Regel.) is a plant of 

 much lessened size, as a rule about 6 inches high, though able to 

 attain a foot. It is otherwise a smaller repetition of the last, but its 

 leaves are usually twirled sickle-wise in a sidelong curve, and have 

 waved edges, while tho smaller bell-shaped flower of scarlet glares 



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