THE LAND OF AZURE BLUE 57 



to the dreary North. The commencement of this trade 

 was due to the suggestion made some fifty years ago by 

 Alphonse Karr, the French poet and journalist, who had a 

 beautiful garden of his own at St. Raphael, and found 

 that he could produce flowers in profusion through the 

 winter. Two years ago I visited this garden (which now 

 belongs to a French painter) at the beginning of April, 

 and found it full of interesting flowers and shrubs, 

 enormous bamboos, palm trees, some twenty different 

 " mimosas," eucalyptus of several species, camellia trees, 

 and rose-bushes in quantity. 



The influence of man on the vegetation of a favoured 

 locality like the Riviera is more striking than in the North. 

 But it is worth remembering that the most familiar tree in 

 England the common elm is not a native, but intro- 

 duced from South Europe. Our native elm is the 

 wych-elm, or mountain elm a much handsomer tree, in 

 the opinion of many, than the so-called " common elm." 

 There are doubts as to whether both the spruce and the 

 larch were not introduced by man at a very remote time, 

 so that the Scotch fir would be our only aboriginal pine. 

 The oak, beech, birch, ash, hawthorn, poplar, and alder are 

 undoubted native English trees. The holly-oak or ever- 

 green oak, the sycamore, plane-tree, sweet chestnut, horse 

 chestnut, walnut, and probably the lime or linden tree have 

 been introduced by migrating men at various periods into 

 our islands. With the exception of rye and oats none of 

 the plants which we cultivate for food are derived from 

 our own wild plants, and none of our domesticated animals 

 have been produced from native wild kinds. 



