popularity and former frequency in gardens in these words : " The Red 

 Martagon of Constantinople is become so common everywhere, and so 

 well known to all lovers of these delights, that I shal seem unto them to 

 lose time, to bestow many lines upon it ; yet because it is so fair a flower, 

 and was at the first so highly esteemed, it deserveth his place and 

 commendations, howsoever increasing the plenty hath not made it 

 dainty." 



One more of the Lilies, indispensable for loveliness, should be grown 

 wherever it is found possible. This is the Nankeen Lily {L. testaceum). 

 It is a flower as mysterious as it is beautiful. It is not found wild, and 

 is considered to be a hybrid between the White Lily and the Scarlet 

 Martagon. Whether it occurred naturally, or whether it was the 

 deliberate work of some unknown benefactor to horticulture, will now 

 never be known ; we can only be thankful that by some happy agency 

 we have this Lily of mixed parentage, one of the most beautiful in 

 cultivation. The name Nankeen Lily nearly, but not exactly, describes 

 its colour, for a suspicion of pinkish warmth is added to the tender buff- 

 colour usually so named. 



Many other Lilies may be grown in different gardens, but the 

 tenderer kinds from Eastern Asia are not for the hardy flower-border, 

 and the vigorous American species have not yet been with us long enough 

 to be familiar as flowers of old English gardens. 



A July garden would not show its true character without some masses 

 of the stately blue perennial Larkspurs. No garden plant has been more 

 widely cultivated within the last fifty years, and our nurserymen have 

 produced a large range of beautiful varieties. They have, perhaps, gone 

 a little too far in some directions. The desire to produce something that 

 can be called a novelty often makes growers forget that what is wanted is 

 the thing that is most beautiful, rather than something merely exception- 

 ally abnormal, to be gaped at in wonderment for perhaps one season, and 

 above all for the purpose of being blazoned forth in the trade list. The 

 true points to look for in these grand flowers are pure colour, whether 

 light, medium or dark, fine stature and a well-filled but not overcrowded 

 spike. There are some pretty double flowers, where the individual 

 bloom loses its normal shape and becomes flattened, but the single is the 



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