VARIETY IN SPRING FLOWERS 9 



Tulips bring to the garden, besides this quality of gayety, 

 those other qualities of dignity, of bright or sombre beauty; 

 indeed with some of the sorts, like Mr, Groenwegen, Garibaldi, 

 Cardinal Manning, and Louis XIV, a certain grandeur of form 

 and color attaches to these flowers. The earlier tulips, species 

 tulips so-called, like the species crocus, — all flowers with few 

 or no common names, only the Latin, but easily mastered when 

 one is interested, — the species tulips are, for the most part, 

 both small and gay. Everyone should leave a corner for a small 

 collection of these. There are, for instance, tulip Greigii, with its 

 red and yellow flowers, and its spotted leaf like that of the 

 dogtooth violet; tulip Clusiana, the Lady tulip, a tiny white 

 flower with bright rose outside; tulip Fosteriana, a magnificent 

 scarlet flower from Bokhara, and the lovely Kaufmanniana, 

 called with reason the water-lily tulip. I write only of those I 

 know, but these tulips are vitally interesting to all who grow 

 spring flowers, and as it becomes more and more simple to 

 procure scillas, puschkinias, and grape hyacinths, so it will be- 

 come more and more fascinating to try these tulips from the 

 Orient and arrange them in clusters with the tiny flowers of 

 blue and violet just mentioned. 



The so-called early tulips we must consider, as they are 

 valuable for effects upon the ground; yet I would have the 

 reader remember that the species tulips of the last paragraph 

 are much earlier in bloom than the "early" ones of our bulb 

 list. Among the "single earlies" as they are called. Cottage 

 Maid shines out to me as an old friend of the borders. It is 

 rose-pink with a white flush. Cerise Grisdelin and Rose Gris- 

 delin again have delicious tones of rose. Brunhilde is of yellowish 

 white and, in the group of yellows, Jaune Aplatie, King of the 

 Yellows, Yellow Prince, Chrysolora, are all excellent for clear 

 color. All these early pink and yellow tulips suggest forget-me- 



