H 4 BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS 



Sunflowers -The Sunflower in its many forms, annual and 

 perennial, is an old-time favourite. Perhaps we hold it a little 

 too cheaply. We have been used to it all our lives, and we may 

 not have learned the differences between the varieties, because it 

 has not occurred to us that the plants are worthy of being studied. 

 We sow them or plant them, and there's an end of it. 



"Sunflowers planted for their gilded show, 

 That scale the lattice windows ere they blow, 

 Then sweet to habitants within the sheds, 

 Peep through the diamond panes their gilded heads. 



So sings the poet. He is guilty of tautology, for he uses the 

 adjective "gilded" twice in four lines, but when he speaks of 

 their being "sweet to habitants within the sheds," he knows what 

 he is talking about. He was probably a poultry-keeper, and had 

 learned how fond fowls are of the oily seeds. 



Moore was not equally correct, although distinctly more poetical, 

 when he used the figure 



" As the Sunflower turns to her God when he sets 

 The same look which she turned when he rose." 



It is a pleasing fancy that the Sunflower follows the sun in its 

 passage of the heavens, but it is not based on fact. Anyone who 

 grows a group of Sunflowers may observe that some flowers are 

 facing the sun at dawn, and some at sunset, but they are not 

 the same flowers ; and they certainly do not twist round and 

 follow the sun's orbit. 



The Sunflower belongs to the genus Helianthus, and there are 

 both annual and perennial forms of it. The former are propagated 

 by seed, and the latter by seeds and division. The annuals may 

 be sown under glass in March, or out of doors at the end of 

 April, and the perennials may be divided at the same period. 

 Most of them are tall, and some are also bushy growers, so that 

 they take up a good deal of space. On this account they must 

 not be planted numerously, especially near the front of beds or 



