April Showers 



pearly effect when filled with the honey. What animal in 

 its native Persia looks up into the flowers and is attracted 

 by these glistening drops ? Observers have watched honey- 

 bees alight on the stigma and crawl up to it to reach the 

 honey, and as this flower is protogynous it can only 

 receive pollen from an older flower, thus ensuring cross- 

 fertilisation. These observations were made in gardens in 

 Germany, but surely this tall drink, this pool of nectar, is 

 not so cunningly arranged for nothing larger than honey- 

 bees. 



The double flowered forms are not free in flowering nor 

 very pretty when they do overcome their ungenerous habits, 

 and if they die, I shall not buy others. The Crown-upon- 

 crown variety is curious with its second tier of green crown 

 leaves, and like the fasciated form known as Slagswaard it 

 is only a very strong, well-grown bulb that produces the 

 abnormal structure, and in most seasons my clumps cannot 

 be recognised from the ordinary form. I am fond of the 

 two variegated forms, both the golden and the silver ; the 

 mingling of burnt sienna, green and cream colour in a 

 young shoot, is very beautiful especially when backed by 

 a group of the green-leaved forms. 



F. perstca exists but without happiness, and I should 

 like more of its curiously metallic effect : the glaucous 

 leaves suggest weathered copper, greened with age, and 

 the flowers are like .bronze bells wrought by some 

 Japanese artist. F. pyrenaica has somewhat similar 

 flowers, but they are parcel-gilt, and also lack the plum- 

 like bloom so suggestive of aged and weathered metal 

 which is the great charm of persica. I have a fine 

 tall form with yellow flowers, which is by repute and 

 167 



