GARDENING BY M YSELF. \ 89 



calyx. Agrippina, the brilliant little Bengal, 

 offers both buds and blossoms with calm 

 unvarying regularity, very regardless of 

 weather; and Mine. Bosanquefs paler face 

 is seldom absent. Herinosa, too, shows deep 

 spots of colour. Now^ look at Sombriel. 

 Long new shoots, thick set with their deep 

 green leaves ; and bearing high in air a 

 perfect array of buds, in every stage of 

 growth, and two open roses. But oh ! such 

 roses ! Translucent white, into which there 

 has somehow crept a thought of colour — 

 what colour, you cannot tell. The whole so 

 waxy and pure and moulded, that you are 

 ready to repeat the comical remark once 

 made by a greenhouse visitor, and say they 

 are ''just like artificial flowers." These do 

 look ''just like wax," only with a differ- 

 ence, — the difference between life and 

 death, the false and the true. Take one of 

 SombrieTs breaths of fragrance, and you 

 will debate the wax question no longer. 



A beauty of another style is Souvenir de 

 Malmaison with buds that are absolutely 



