MAY 59 



and soon passed away ; while many plants, especially 

 those with shallow roots, or which had not been long 

 planted, gradually flagged and in many cases perished. 

 Still there was an abundance of flowers, and among 

 the flowers of the end of April and the early part of 

 May none are so conspicuous as the tulips. I am 

 not very fond of the florist's tulips; in some cases 

 their colours are most brilliant, but always coarse 

 and flaring, and their growth is very stiff, and to me 

 they give little pleasure. Indeed, I think a bed con- 

 sisting of tulips only is an ugly object ; I should 

 say that such a bed is the ugliest of all such one- 

 flowered beds, except a bed of double zinnias; but 

 in so saying I suppose I am in a minority, and 

 perhaps a very small minority. For more than three 

 hundred years tulips have had a wonderful fascina- 

 tion for all florist gardeners, and for many who are 

 more than florists, and I suppose their popularity is 

 still almost as great as ever. The bulb catalogues, 

 both English and foreign, contain every year long 

 lists of tulips. Many of them are very high-priced, 

 though, of course, very cheap if compared with the 

 prices which are reported to have been given for 

 tulips during the ' tulipo-mania ' of the seventeenth 

 century. In the whole history of plants there is 

 probably no more curious or sadder chapter than 



