Flowers and Gardens 



its season may appear at full advantage. 

 Blossoms in the summer-time would be in 

 danger of being hidden by the leaves if 

 they came forth close upon the branches. 

 This type is accordingly made to belong 

 characteristically to the season in which 

 leaves are imperfectly developed, and the 

 summer blossoms are generally placed 

 upon stalks which carry them beyond the 

 foliage. Arrangements of the same sort 

 for preventing interference hold every- 

 where in the kingdom of plants. The 

 humbler must come forth first, where the 

 higher would rise up to veil them, and 

 must, therefore, principally belong to an 

 early season of the year. The early spring 

 flowers would be little noticed if they came 

 first in the deep grass of May or June. 

 Daisies may be found there, it is true, but 

 not those rich milky stars which dapple 

 the soft blue-green of the April meadows ; 

 the little Celandine is gone, the golden 

 day-fires of the Dandelion have lost their 

 brightness, and it has almost ceased to 

 burn even like a pale candle in the grass. 

 Any of these flowers may linger, but their 

 early loveliness is fled. 1 We find the same 

 thing again in the woodlands. There is 



1 Daisies are both common and beautiful in early 

 summer. In the month of May their numbers are 

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