60 IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN 



of admiration, and the beautiful French and Dutch 

 books of the period gave excellent engravings of it. 

 From the first, too, it took the name which still remains 

 unto us, and which was at once adopted in all Euro- 

 pean nations ; and the name was happily chosen, for it 

 does not imply that the flower was the emperor of 

 flowers, but it draws attention to a very wonderful 

 arrangement of the flower and seed-vessels. It would 

 be hard to find any plant whose flowers are more com- 

 pletely turned earthwards than the Crown Imperial, yet 

 each flower contains a clear drop of sweet water at the 

 base of the petals, which remains steadily in the flower 

 in defiance of all the laws of gravitation. But no sooner 

 is the flower fully fertilised, and the large seed-pods 

 formed, than, in spite of their great weight, they at once 

 begin to rise, till at last they range themselves in per- 

 fect order on the top of the flower stem, forming what 

 it requires little fancy to liken to a well-formed crown 

 with sharp jewelled points. And not only in its name, 

 but in another very remarkable way, the beautiful 

 plant has remained stationary. Though it has been in 

 the hands of the gardeners for more than three hundred 

 years, they seem to have been unable to alter, or, as they 

 would say, improve it in any way ; so we, at the end 

 of the nineteenth century, have the very same varieties, 

 and no more, that our forefathers had in the sixteenth 



