TULIPA. 



lines of brownish black, beneath the immense and amazing goblets of 

 vermilion that are its blossoms, is well known among the greater and 

 most gorgeous Tulips of the rock-garden. It likes a specially hot and 

 well-drained place, but is never a species easy to keep suited for very 



long, as the strength of our summers is not enough to hearten it fully 

 for next year's bulb, but its succession gradually dwindles away. Also 

 the plant has mifSnesses of its own. 



SECOND GROUP. ALL WITH FLUFFY FILAMENTS AND 

 BELL-sHAPED FLOWERS. 



T. saxatilis is a Cretan, of wholly distinct aspect., with ample soft 

 leaves of peculiar smoothness and brilliant green gloss. The stems 

 are about a foot long or more, and usually carry a couple of deep and 

 beautiful bell-shaped flowers of soft clear rose with suffused and 

 melting yellow base (Bot. Mag., T. 6374). Its only trouble in England 

 (where it grows heartily and spreads, yet can but seldom be induced 

 to flower) is that it seems to want a situation of intense sunshine in a 

 soil so light and stony that it will have no chance of going to sleep in 

 luxury, but will be forced to wake up to its softly lovely chimes in 

 May. As for T. Beccariniana, which is a repetition of this, but with 

 flowers of pearly whiteness flushed with rose, this will not trouble the 

 gardener as much as he would like ; it is only known from one specimen, 

 found near Lucca many years ago and never seen again. 



T. sylvestris is our own wild Tulip, quite common, so far as its 

 notable grey pointed leaves are concerned, in many an orchard of the 

 midlands and the West, extending even into Yorkshire, but always 

 so parsimonious with its blossom that even in a good year an acre of 

 foliage will show but one or two golden bells in April and May. The 

 stem is about 10 inches or a foot high, and the plant may be known from 

 all its hke by the nodding blooms, golden without and within, with 

 the three outer segments curling backward at the tip. In the garden 

 it grows and spreads and flowers admirably, and even seeds itself 

 about ; especially in the slightly improved form that is often sent out 

 as T. florentina. 



T. orphanidea lives in the damp fields of Dekeleia, Arcadia, and 

 Attica. It stands near the last, but the leaves are quite narrow and 

 bright green instead of glaucous-blue, as long as the flower-stem or 

 longer ; while the flowers are purplish outside, golden within, and 

 narrower altogether in the petal (Bot. Mag., T. 6310). 



T. Hageri is among the Royalties of the rock-garden Tulips, — 

 ^411 



