TULIP. 285 
consider the most desirable for garden decoration. Each 
person who has broken one thinks he has a right to give 
it a distinctive name, without considering whether 
others have not produced varieties similar, if not identi- 
cal, so that there may be under cultivation many varie- 
ties with different names that are one and the same 
thing. This causes great confusion in nomenclature, 
the same as exists in all florists’ flowers. Another inter- 
esting peculiarity which hardly belongs to any other 
flower, is the great uncertainty of their markings; for 
although we may have twenty of one kind in a bed, 
scarcely two will come nearly alike; but after they have 
once broken they never after change, the increase always 
bearing the same marks. This uncertainty gives more 
than half the charm to Tulip cultivation, or, rather, to 
the production of new varieties. 
The ideal of a first-class late Tulip has, by common 
consent, been thus minutely specified: The stem should 
be strong, elastic and erect, growing to about thirty 
inches above the surface of the bed. The flower should 
be large, and composed of six petals. These should pro- 
ceed a little horizontally at first, and then turn upwards, 
forming almost a perfect cup, with a round bottom, 
rather widest at the top. The three exterior petals 
should be rather larger than the three inner ones, and 
broader at their base; all the petals should have per- 
fectly entire edges, free from notch or serrature. The 
top of ‘each should be broad and well rounded; the 
ground color of the flower at the bottom of the cup 
should k> clear white or yellow; and the various rich 
colered stripes, which are the principal ornament of a 
fine ‘itp, shod be regular, bold and distinct on the 
mergin, and terminated in fine broken points, elezantly 
feathcred or penciled. The center of each leaf or petal 
should contain one or more bold blotches or stripes, 
intermixed with small portions of the original or breeder 
