112 JUNE FLOWERS 



clashed excruciatingly with those of an Austrian copper 

 briar trained against the wall, and found a fresh place 

 for it in the middle of a wide border. Worse than 

 ever ! Here it is flaring this year (1921) between a 

 bunch of Geum Borisii in front, with flowers the colour 

 of red lead, and a great bush of Buddleia globosa 

 behind, loaded with orange balls. All three are choice 

 plants ; but between them they set up an insufferable 

 discord. So I must work out fresh quarters for the 

 Hippeastrum, taking care not to let it clash with the 

 red variety of the Pyrensean lily (L. Pyrenaicum rub- 

 rum), whereof the jaunty Turk's-caps are painted with 

 the same hue in a lower key. 



Lily experts set small value upon this lily, both in 

 its common yellow and rarer red forms. Mr. Grove, in 

 his excellent handbook 1 on the genus, does deign to 

 notice the red variety, and, after remarking that the 

 yellow Turk's-cap is of ' the easiest culture,' dismisses 

 it as being ' not a thing of beauty,' producing flowers 

 with 'a peculiarly objectionable smell.' De gustibus, 

 etc. I suspect that if this good-natured lily demanded 

 coaxing as importunately as L. Leichlini or Parryi it 

 would hold a very high place in our esteem. Admit- 

 ting that the red-flowering form thereof has neither the 

 grace of L. pomponium nor the intense sealing-wax 

 scarlet of L. Chalcedonicum, it and its yellow sister are 

 the earliest of all lilies to flower; and if their odour 

 offends fastidious nostrils (my own olfactories are of a 

 fibre to suffer it gladly), plant the bulbs out beside 

 woodland paths, where they will thrive in the grass as 



1 Lilies. London: T. 0. and E. C. Jack. N.D. 



