IV. THE FLOWER. JJ 



special character. Some flowers don't like being 

 squeezed at all (fancy a squeezed convolvulus !) ; but 

 these heather bells like it, and look all the prettier 

 for it, — not the squeezed ones exactly, by themselves, 

 but the cluster altogether, by their patience. 



Then also the outside ones get pushed into a 

 sort of star-shape, and in front show the colour 

 of all their sides, and at the back the rich green 

 cluster of sharp leaves that hold them ; all this 

 order being as essential to the plant as any of the 

 more formal structures of the bell itself. 



6. But the bog-heath has usually only one cluster 

 of flowers to arrange on each branch. Take a 

 spray of ling (Frontispiece), and you will find that 

 the richest piece of Gothic spire-sculpture would 

 be dull and graceless beside the grouping of the 

 floral masses in their various life. But it is difficult 

 to give the accuracy of attention necessary to see 

 their beauty without drawing them ; and still more 

 difficult to draw them in any approximation to 

 the truth before they change. This is indeed the 

 fatallest obstacle to all good botanical work. 

 Flowers, or leaves, — and especially the last, — can 

 only be rightly drawn as they grow. And even 

 then, in their loveliest spring action, they grow as 

 you draw them, and will not stay quite the same 

 creatures for half an hour. 



