FLOWERS AND THEIR PEDIGREES. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Our beautiful green England is carpeted, more than 

 any other country in the world, perhaps, save only 

 Switzerland and a few other mountain lands, with a 

 perpetual sward of vivid verdure, interspersed with 

 innumerable colours of daisies, and buttercups, and 

 meadow-sweet, and harebells, and broader patches of 

 purple heather. It is usual to speak of tropical vege- 

 tation, indeed, with a certain forced ecstasy of language ; 

 but those who know the tropics best, know that, though 

 you may find a few exceptionally large and brilliant 

 blossoms here and there under the breadth and shade 

 of equatorial forests, the prevailing tone is one of mono- 

 tonous dry greenery ; and there is nothing anywhere 

 in very southern climes to compare, as to mass of 

 colour, with our Scotch hillsides, our English gorse- 

 clad commons, or our beautiful dappled meadows and 



