So GAEDEN FLOWERS. 



The flower is still imich cultivated in Holland, 

 from which country all the rest of Europe are 

 supplied with bulbs. The varieties of tulip, 

 and the names given to them by florists, are, 

 like the different anemonies, nearly endless. 

 The kind which is considered as the " king of 

 florists' flowers," is the common tuUp, {Ttdipa 

 Gesneriana,) which was named after Conrad 

 Gesner, the celebrated Swiss botanist ; and 

 which has had more culture bestowed on it, 

 than perhaps any other flower in the world, if 

 we except such as are cultivated for the food 

 or other useful substances their plants may fur- 

 nish. Though this flower grows wild in the 

 Levant and Syria, and is occasionally seen in 

 the fields of Constantinople, yet the Turks have 

 for many centuries cultivated it in gardens. It 

 was brought to us from a garden of Turkey, by 

 Busbequius, and was first described by Gesner 

 in 1559. It appears, however, to have reached 

 England two years earlier, for Gerarde, at that 

 time, mentions the pains taken by one of his 

 " loving friends, a curious searcher of simples 

 and learned apothecary," who undertook, if 

 possible, to find out the number of sorts ; 

 " but," adds the writer, " he had not done this 

 after twenty years, not being able to attain to 

 the end of his travail ; for that each new year 

 bringeth forth new plants of sundry colours, 

 not before seen; all which to describe particu- 

 larly, were to roll Sisyphus' stone, or to num- 

 ber the sands." 



An anecdote which is recorded of an occur- 



