6 MY GARDEN 



may have great moments. For instance, there was 

 the occasion when Kew wrote and asked me for a 

 plant, because Kew had not got it ! Upon the receipt 

 of this command I found myself in a sort of horti- 

 cultural ecstasy ; and the apotheosis took a very 

 beautiful form. I seemed to be floating on a rosy 

 cloud between Sir William Thiselton-Dyer and Miss 

 Gertrude Jekyll. Each had me by the hand, and 

 cupids pelted us with the petals of rare hybrids. 



The treasure that Kew honoured me by accepting 

 came in a parcel of corms, tubers, bulbs, and seeds 

 from the Zambesi basin. After two years of getting 

 accustomed to the vagaries of my stove-house, this 

 African plucked up spirit and put forth a solitary 

 bloom. It was a lovely purple and golden creature 

 of daintiest habit. I knew it for a gloriosa, but had 

 never seen the like. 



Our Royal Gardens welcomed my flower in a spirit 

 of large enthusiasm. The plant turned out to be 

 gloriosa Carsoni, and Kew wanted it. Next autumn 

 I sent a plump tuber, and with the generous instinct 

 of your true gardener, Kew sent in exchange some 

 noble and interesting exotics. Of other goods from 

 the Zambesi, I have flowered gladiolus Melleri (of 

 Baker), and another gladiolus or two not often seen. 

 A white haemanthus in one box blossomed during his 

 journey home probably under the impression that 

 it was a case of " now or never." He arrived with a 

 beautiful bloom, but, though still alive, that effort 

 appears to have rendered the plant a chronic sufferer, 

 he has never smiled again. To be honest, a good 



