Flowers and Gardens 



ground. The bulk of the leaves, how- 

 ever, point very markedly upwards, 

 being the channels by which wet is con- 

 ducted to the centre of the plant, so 

 that we may often see them with but 

 little of the bending-over appearance, and 

 they always seem shortened just in time 

 to prevent their running into languid- 

 ness. Now turn the leaf sideways, 

 and note the changed aspect of the 

 margin from thence, still wavy, but 

 more regular in its festooning, and sharp 

 with emphatic vein-points. How this 

 contrasts with our former view when 

 we were looking at it rather from 

 above ! 



But one of the most beautiful points 

 in the Primrose is the manner in which 

 the paleness of the flowers is taken up 

 by the herbage. Thus look at that down 

 upon the flower-stalks, which clothes 

 them like a soft thin halo, and seems, 

 when you nearly examine it, to resemble 

 the white silky fibres of that lovely 

 mildew which so often forms on things 

 decaying in close places, a something so 

 delicate and half-transparent you think 

 that it might melt at a touch. Follow 

 it thence to the under-surfaces of the 

 leaves, with their white midribs and 

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