250 STUDIES IN GARDENING 



"Neither have I ever seen any form of man-like or 

 woman-like parts in the roots of any. ... But 

 many cunning counterfeit roots have been shaped 

 to such forms and publicly exposed to the view of 

 all that would see them." He does not even men- 

 tion the fable that the Mandrake shrieks when pulled 

 up by the roots. Its fame still survives in literature 

 from the Book of Genesis to Othello and that strange 

 poem of Donne's that begins: 



Go and catch a falling star, 

 Get with child a mandrake root. 



But its fame has almost outlived the plant itself, so 

 far as our gardens are concerned, and many gardeners 

 would not recognize it if they saw it. It has so little 

 beauty that now, when it is no longer used as a medi- 

 cine, it could only be grown as a curiosity. 



The pleasant associations of flowers are of several 

 different kinds, and have much effect upon their treat- 

 ment in gardens. Thus we naturally associate the 

 most beautiful of our native wildflowers with wild 

 places. There is no reason in the nature of things 

 why Primroses and the English Daffodil and Blue- 

 bells should not be grown in the border; yet their 

 beauty seems to us to be lessened by putting them 

 there because we think of them as a part of the beauty 

 of the woods or meadows. The Daffodil, even in its 

 most elaborate garden forms, is still for us a meadow 

 flower because of its likeness to the Wild Daffodil. 

 But the Pheasant-eye Narcissus is not, because, al- 



