THE ARISTOCRAT OF THE BULB GARDENS 93 



ago, " sported " from a well-known red variety ; the 

 man who owns it found it when the bulbs were in 

 bloom. It is not a "rogue" but a true bulb, in 

 leaf and flower representing the old red type, only 

 in colour yellow instead of red. 



The ways of seedling tulips are rather strange ; 

 when they first flower, which is sometimes not 

 till they are as much as seven years old, they are 

 usually self-coloured. But in a few years' time 

 they "break," that is, the flowers are no longer 

 self-coloured but variegated. When this will 

 happen it is not possible to foretell, sometimes, 

 most usually, within two or three years of first 

 blooming ; sometimes, though not often, not till 

 after five-and-twenty or thirty years. The reason 

 of this remarkable peculiarity does not seem to 

 be clearly understood. Parkinson, it is true, offers 

 one : " All such flowers not having their originall 

 in that manner (for some that have such or the 

 like marks from the beginning, that is, from the 

 first and second years flowering, are constant, and 

 doe not change), but as I said, were of one colour 

 at the first, do show the weakness and decay of 

 the roots, and this extraordinary beauty in the 

 flower, is but as the brightness of a light, upon 

 the very extinguishing thereof, and doeth plainly 



