II 



86 s^ Zhc fragrant IRotc Booft 



its new European home, was immediately dignified as the 

 "Holy-Mallow" or holy-hoc, which in time easily corrupted 

 itself into the hollyhock of the present day. However, 

 perhaps it is best so, for the plant itself is scarcely less daring 

 than its unfitting name. ji^^^ ^ / \ X'^ 



As we see the hollyhock today in our gardens, after many 

 years of careful breeding and propagation, scientific crossings 

 and secret experiment, it is not altogether easy to hark back 

 to the earlier stage when it had one colour and bowed only 

 once in the season, and that almost at the summer's end. 

 This was a matter of note even as late as the time of Tenny- 

 son, for he says: 



" A spirit haunts the year's last hours 

 Dwelling within those yellowing bowers; . . . 

 Heavily hangs the broad sunflower 

 Over its grave i' the earth so chilly; 

 /Heavily hangs the hollyhock, \ ^. 



r Heavily hangs the tiger-lily." \ \^\ 



No longer is the hollyhock associated solely with "moul- 

 dering leaves " nor with the damp and sullen autumn. He has 

 shaken off all of this gloom and now comes to us in a pink 

 and yellow profusion along with the buttercups and the 

 daisies and pansies of which Katharine Tynan paints so -^ ^ 

 loving a word-picture. In the matter of colour too, the 

 hollyhock proves itself a merry trickster, and like many 

 another lives a bold and dual life, justifying the famous 

 dramatist who asserts that ^"x^ 



