EH MJce * flower (wJea 



scarlet, with a glittering eye of peacock blue. To 

 look at it in the midday sun makes the head reel. 

 From thousands of dollars for a single bulb, in the 

 heyday of their infancy, they have become so reason- 

 able anyone may have them to-day for the meek sum 

 of one dollar and seventy-five cents a hundred. 

 And yet they speak of the good old days ! There 

 are also other Gesnerianas, including a yellow, and a 

 white edged with pink. 



For the " dead queer " tulips, take the Bizarres, 

 which look as if they were Easter eggs colored by a 

 freakish child who dribbed the color on instead of 

 dipping the egg in the dye. Of these the prettiest are 

 the Violettes, which are marbled purple and white. 



The Parrot tulips are equally strange, if not more 

 queer than the Bizarres. They are most appropri- 

 ately named, for their color is plagiarized from the 

 parrot's own feathers. Not content with possessing 

 such weird, birdlike tints, these tulips grow just as 

 queerly as they can, flinging their blossoms at every 

 grotesque angle, never standing upright like any 

 other sensible tulip. But although they are as lack- 

 ing in mentality as the parrot itself, they are yet 

 among the most desirous of all their family, and 

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