xiv THE BOOK OF BULBS 



was once put in a garden in Vienna in the middle of a 

 grass plot shaded by maple trees. As the grass was 

 mowed every year before the flowers opened there was 

 no formation of seeds, and the tulips could only multiply 

 by offshoots. After about twenty years, the lawn was 

 covered with tulip leaves, which arose from subterranean 

 bulbs occupying an area ten paces in diameter. Thus, 

 in the time mentioned, the bulbs had spread for about 

 five paces in all directions in consequence of the pull of 

 the contracting roots. 



Indeed, the underground life of bulbous plants, both 

 during their more active stages of growth, and in those 

 times mistakenly spoken of as the periods of rest, is full 

 of interest to the careful observer. That curious process 

 of ripening which is essential to the health of nearly all 

 bulbs is itself no merely mechanical change. Each plant 

 has its peculiar time for bursting through the surface of 

 earth, for expanding its first leaves, and for displaying 

 the glory of its first blooms ; and any material hastening 

 of these processes by the artificial application of heat 

 means, except in a few species, subsequent debility to 

 the plant, and, as a rule (though not invariably), 

 diminished character in the flowers thus forced. There 

 are, however, plants, such as Lilies of the Valley, to 

 which the so-called resting stage seems of less duration 

 and importance, and it is such flowers which may be 

 forced under carefully arranged conditions with little ill 

 result. 



Among our English wild flowering plants, the prin- 

 cipal ones furnished with bulbs or conns are to be 

 found in the orders Iridaceae, Amaryllidaceae, and 

 Liliaceae, Included in the former are the very rare pur- 

 plish flower known as Columna's trichonema, and the 

 doubtfully native Crocus sativus, the autumnal saffron 

 crocus, referred to by Hakluyt at the close of the six- 

 teenth century: "This commodity of Saffron groweth 



