Old Flower Favorites 179 



" I love every flower that grows," but I answer with 

 emphasis, " I don't ! ' 1 have ever disliked the 

 Portulaca, — I hate its stems. It is my fate never 

 to escape it. I planted it once to grow under Sweet 

 Alyssum in the little enclosure of earth behind my 

 city home; when I returned in the autumn, every- 

 thing was covered, blanketed, overwhelmed with 

 Portulaca. Since then it comes up even in the 

 grass, and seems to thrive by being trampled upon. 

 The Portulaca was not a flower of colonial days; I 

 am glad to learn our great-grandmothers were not 

 pestered with it ; it was not described in the Botani- 

 cal Magazine till 1829. 



I do not care for the Petunia close at hand on 

 account of its sickish odor. But in the dusky border 

 the flowers shine like white stars (page 1 80), and make 

 you almost forgive their poor colors in the daylight. 

 I never liked the Calceolaria. Every child in our 

 town used to have a Calceolaria in her own small gar- 

 den plot, but I never wanted one. I care little for 

 Chrysanthemums ; they fill in the border in autumn, 

 and they look pretty well growing, but 1 like few of 

 the flowers close at hand. By some curious twist of 

 a brain which, alas ! is apt not to deal as it is ex- 

 pected and ought to, with sensations furnished to it, I 

 have felt this distaste for Chrysanthemums since 

 I attended a Chrysanthemum Show. Of course, I 

 ought to love them far more, and have more eager 

 interest in them — but I do not. Their sister, the 

 China Aster, I care little for. The Germans call 

 Asters " death-flowers." The Empress of Austria 

 at the Swiss hotel where she lodged just before she 



