THE BLOSSOMING OF AUTUMN. 27 



understood by decay, or at any rate decay of the 

 kind which, when once commenced, must inevit- 

 ably lead to a disintegration of parts : for not 

 only can the course and progress of this dis- 

 colouration be arrested in the case of most leaves 

 at any stage, but the effects of the process up 

 to the point reached can be retained and per- 

 petuated by careful management that is to say, 

 by taking means to alter the conditions which are 

 necessary in order to continue, or merge, mere 

 discolouration into actual decay. It is this pos- 

 sibility which has enabled the Author to obtain 

 the subjects for the coloured illustrations of this 

 volume. 



Illustrations of autumnal leaves in this country 

 could, necessarily, be only typical, for notwith- 

 standing the comparative limitation of the extent 

 of our flora the variations of autumnal colouring 

 alone are almost endless. If it had been intended 

 in this volume merely to give the colour of each 

 autumnal leaf when it had reached its final stage 

 of colouring, the task would have been easy and 

 few colours would have been required. But it is 

 in the early autumnal tinting that the charm of 



