268 Old Time Gardens 



ner, its most valuable color giver. Self-sown, this 

 Larkspur sprung up freely every year ; needing no 

 special cherishing or nourishing, it grew apace, and 

 bloomed with a luxuriance and length. of flowering 

 that cheerfully blued the garden for the whole sum- 

 mer. -It was a favorite of children in their floral 

 games, and pretty in the housewife's vases, but its 

 chief hold on favor was in its democracy and 

 endurance. Other flowers drew admirers and lost 

 them ; some grew very ugly in their decay ; certain 

 choice seedlings often had stunted development, gar- 

 den scourges attacked tender beauties ; fierce July 

 suns dried up the whole border, all save the Lark- 

 spur, which neither withered nor decayed ; and 

 often, unaided, saved the midsummer garden from 

 scanty unkemptness and dire disrepute. 



The graceful line of Dr. Holmes, "light as a 

 loop of Larkspur," always comes to my mind as I 

 look at a bed of Larkspur ; and I am glad to show 

 here a " loop of Larkspur," growing by the great 

 boulder which he loved in the grounds of his coun- 

 try home at Beverly Farms. I liked to fancy that 

 Dr. Holmes's expression was written by him from 

 his memory of the little wreaths and garlands of 

 pressed Larkspur that have been made so univer- 

 sally for over a century by New England children. 

 But that careful flower observer, Mrs. Wright, notes 

 that in a profuse growth of the Bee Larkspur, the 

 strong flower spikes often are in complete loops be- 

 fore full expansion into a straight spire ; some are 

 looped thrice. Dr. Holmes was a minute observer of 

 floral characteristics, as is shown in his poem on the 



