STUDIES IN GARDENING 



make their artistic associations almost as much as 

 Orchids or any novel species of Primula or Poppy 

 just imported from the East. True, they have been 

 painted by Fantin Latour and other skilful artists; 

 but a flower is not thoroughly at home in art until 

 it has been conventionalized for decoration, until 

 we have in our houses, not mere representations of 

 it in a frame, but the flower itself tamed without loss 

 of character into a beautiful pattern. 1 Then, indeed, it 

 becomes a part of our lives, as wild flowers are a part 

 of the life of the earth. But it must be very familiar 

 to us and very much beloved before it can be so tamed. 

 A designer cannot take any flower he chooses and 

 make a pattern of it, or at least one that will please 

 us for long. Such patterns must grow and be per- 

 fected under the hands of many different designers; 

 and the flowers of which they are composed must 

 be chosen by the consent of the world, like the flowers 

 familiar in poetry or legend or the figurative speech 

 of men. Indeed, we may compare the decorative 

 use of flowers with those felicitous names which they 

 only get when they have been familiar and beloved 

 for centuries, and which we find it impossible to fix 

 upon even the most beautiful of new flowers; and 

 just as the very abundance of new flowers makes it 

 more difficult for us now to find good English names 

 for them, so it makes it more difficult for us to employ 



1 Remarkable illustrations of the last phrase of this foregoing sentence are 

 found in Foord's "Decorative Flower Studies," Batsford, London, 1901. 

 L. Y. K. 



