CAMPANULAS 



/" INHERE are some flowers which in the most formal 

 JL garden never lose their wildness or that air of 

 romance which most wild flowers possess. Every 

 Daffodil looks like a meadow flower, and all cam- 

 panulas seem to belong to the mountain-side or the 

 woodland. There is a mysterious charm about all 

 bell-shaped flowers, as if they really had some secret 

 musical purpose; and there seems to be a further 

 mystery in the dim-blue colour of campanula bells. 

 The wild beauty of these plants has been but little 

 touched or altered by the florists, and the reason, no 

 doubt, is that Nature herself has already done nearly 

 all that can be done with them. There are some plants, 

 such as Pansies or Begonias, in which she seems to 

 produce merely possibilities for the gardener to realize. 

 There are others which she herself perfects for the 

 garden, enlarging their flowers until they can scarcely 

 be further enlarged without loss of symmetry, and 

 developing innumerable species infinitely varied in 

 habit and form. This is the case with campanulas. 

 There are some that grow as tall as a man, and some 

 that grow scarcely higher than moss. The flowers 

 of some are bell-shaped, others starry, and others al- 

 most flat like plates. Only in colour do they vary 

 little, being nearly all of a soft-grey blue or purple, 



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