Artistic and scientific gardening * . no occupation is healthier $ 

 none is fuller of variety and interest/' 



MORTIMER COLLINS. 



AUGUST 



'"T^HOUGHTS of Autumn come with the blossoming of 

 ** " the broad sunflower," now hanging its giant head in 

 many and many a garden. It was a fancy with the old poets 

 and some writers that the flower turned round with the sun, 

 as Thomson sang : 



" The lofty flower of the sun, 

 Sad when he sets, shuts up her yellow leaves, 

 Drooping all night ; and when he warm returns, 

 Points her enamoured bosom to his ray." 



The French called this flower Grand soleil, also tournesol, or 

 turn-sol, from the same vulgar error. Most probably the 

 germ of this belief in the diurnal movement of the sunflower 

 is found in the fable of Clytie, who was transformed into a 

 flower and doomed for ever to be rooted to earth, for ever 

 turning her impassioned gaze towards her adored Phoebus. 



The sunflower, a native of Peru, first opened its petals in 

 Europe about the end of the sixteenth century, and by the 

 Peruvians it was used as a symbol in their religious festivals, 

 and the virgins who officiated in the temple of the Sun were 

 crowned with sunflowers wrought of pure gold. Gerard, in 

 his Herbal, describes it as " The Indian sunne or the golden 

 flower of Peru, a plant of such stature and talenesse, that in 

 sommer, being sowen of a seede in Aprill, it hath risen up to 

 the height of fourteen foote in my garden." Parkinson says : 

 " This goodly and stately plant, the golden flower of Peru, 



