'^ FLOWERS AND THEIR SOUL 181 



as fifty flowers on one stalk; and there was 

 one that carried ninety-one flowers on a four- 

 foot stalk." 



And the man who most of all enjoyed these 

 new sights and perfumes was the master who 

 had created them. 



"Can my thoughts be imagined," said Bur- 

 bank, "after twenty-six years of care and labor, 

 as I walked among them on a dewy morning, 

 and looked upon these new forms of beauty 

 upon which other eyes had never gazed? . . . 

 A new world of beauty seemed to have been 

 found, and I was fully rewarded for all the care 

 I had bestowed upon them." 



Let me add a word of warning. Don't think 

 your flowers are not fragrant because they have 

 no scent in the daytime. Some of them have 

 it all the time, but many plants swing their 

 censers only in the evening and early morning. 

 The fragrant tobacco plant {Nicotiana affinis), 

 for instance, bears hundreds of large snowy 

 blossoms at once. In the daytime it seems made 

 for eyes only ; but visit it by full moon and you 

 will be reminded of the stories of the spice 

 islands which intoxicated the senses of mariners 

 before they could see them. 



