266 Old Time Gardens 



In varied shades of blue, purple, lilac, pink, and 

 white, Bachelor's Buttons are found in every old 

 garden, growing in a confused tangle of" lytle leaves " 

 and vari-colored flowers, very happily and with very 

 good effect. The illustration on page 258 shows their 

 growth and value in the garden. 



In The Promise of May Dora's eyes are said to be 

 as blue as the Bluebell, Harebell, Speedwell, Blue- 

 bottle, Succory, Forget-me-not, and Violets ; so we 

 know what flowers Tennyson deemed blue. 



Another poet named as the bluest flower, the 

 Monk's-hood, so wonderful of color, one of the 

 very rarest of garden tints ; graceful of growth, 

 blooming till frost, and one of the garden's delights. 

 In a list of garden flowers published in Boston, in 

 1828, it is called Cupid's Car. Southey says in 

 The Doctor, of Miss Allison's garden : " The Monk's- 

 hood of stately growth Betsey called ' Dumbledores 

 Delight,'- and was not aware that the plant, in whose 

 helmet- rather than cowl-shaped flowers, that busy 

 and best-natured of all insects appears to revel more 

 than any other, is the deadly Aconite of which she 

 read in poetry." The dumbledore was the bumble- 

 bee, and this folk name was given, as many others 

 have been, from a close observance of plant habits ; 

 for the fertilization of the Monk's-hood is accom- 

 plished only by the aid of the bumblebee. 



Many call Chicory or Succory our bluest flower. 

 Thoreau happily termed it "a cool blue." It is not 

 often the fortune of a flower to be brought to notice 

 and affection because of a poem ; we expect the 

 poem to celebrate the virtues of flowers already 



