92 PROSERPIXA. 



the only European type of the large Cape varieties, in all 

 of which, judging from such plates as have been accessible 

 to me, the crests or fringes of the lower petal are less 

 conspicuous 4han in the smaller species; and the flower 

 almost takes the aspect of a broom-blossom or pease- 

 blossom. In the smaller European varieties, the white 

 fringes of the lower petal are the most important and 

 characteristic part of the flower, and they are, among 

 European wild flowers, absolutely without any likeness 

 of associated structure. The fringes or crests which, 

 towards the origin of petals, so often give a frosted or 

 gemmed appearance to the centres of flowers, are here 

 thrown to the extremity of the petal, and suggest an al- 

 most coralline structure of blossom, which in no other 

 instance whatever has been imitated, still less carried out 

 into its conceivable varieties of form. How many such 

 varieties might have been produced if these fringes of the 

 Giulietta, or those already alluded to of Lucia nivea, had 

 been repeated and enlarged ; as the type, once adopted 

 for complex bloom in the thistle-head, is multiplied in 

 the innumerable gradations of thistle, teasel, hawk weed, 

 and aster ! We might have had flowers edged with lace 

 finer than was ever woven by mortal fingers, or tasselled 



* ground- oak.' I want to find a pretty name for it in connection with 

 Savoy or Dauphine, where it indicates, as above stated, (he healthy 

 districts of hard limestone. I do not remember it as ever occurring 

 among the dark and moist shales of the inner mountain ranges, which 

 at once confine and pollute the air. 



