2 HARDY FLOWERS. 



gawky weeds, before you meet a plant that can be called pretty. It 

 is so all over the world. Doubtless many people think, from the 

 fascinating banks of orchids shown at our floral exhibitions, that 

 these favoured plants are gloriously beautiful wherever they are 

 found; but, on the contrary, there are many unattractive plants in 

 the family, many of them large-growing and noble looking, but 

 bearing inconspicuous flowers, not half so beautiful as some of the 

 poorest of our own little meadow orchids ; and so it is with many a 

 tropical family of plants of which only the gorgeous representatives 

 are seen at our flower shows. But, of course, being tropical we have 

 little opportunity of knowing the least ornamental kinds. Moreover, 

 collectors do not bring them home, knowing them to be worthless, 

 and if they are brought home by chance they are soon thrown away 

 as useless. But in the case of the hardy plants of Europe and 

 America it is very different. They are often seen in fact, as often 

 as we go among the fields, or hills, or wilds of those continents ; 

 often gathered and brought home, and once home they, like ill 

 weeds, grow apace and soon become so conspicuous that the really 

 beautiful hardy flowers are unseen among them, or exterminated by 

 them. Most persons will understand what I mean when they 

 remember the many mixed borders they have seen overgrown with 

 weedy asters, Golden Rods, Lysimachia vulgaris, and like plants, 

 which should never be planted except in rough and semi-wild 

 places. 



In garden books and garden journals it is not uncommon to see 

 lists of those plants given, composed in some cases of the poorest 

 weec l s the ground ivy and Moschatel, to wit. These are, of course, 

 written by persons with a very slender knowledge of the subject, 

 who supplement that little with the knowledge to be gained from 

 lists in botanical books ; and being unable to distinguish the kinds 

 which are beautiful from those which are merely interesting in a 

 botanical point of view, they have had considerable influence in 

 retarding improvement in this direction. 



It is to me a cause of surprise that while we find persons going to 

 great expense to build a glass box wherein to preserve a little of the 

 pretty vegetation of New Holland and other warm climates, and 

 which is of necessity always in a condition less beautiful and less 

 satisfactory than vegetation flourishing in the free air, we may seek 

 in vain in their gardens for a group of the noble hardy Lilies, for 

 the vividly-coloured and beautiful early spring flowers of northern 



