BULBOUS PLANTS. 



Does it need more than the mere mentioning of Snowdrop 

 and Daffodil, Anemone and Crocus to call to mind the sweet- 

 est charms with which nature has endowed us? Flora has 

 no other children alike beautiful, alike innocent, alike fleet- 

 ing. They spring up like beloved children, grow sweet and 

 charming and, as if they were too precious to be soiled 

 through contact with the world, they pass to the homes 

 whence they came. But with every new awakening of nature 

 they return as dainty as ever, brightly arrayed in their 

 heavenly robes of surpassing purity to renew their yet vivid 

 impression from the season before. And are not these the 

 flowers of the children? Why does a tot reach for the 

 Snowdrop, why does it break the Fairy-maid, why is the 

 Narcissus its companion, greeted as a friend as soon as 

 beheld? 



And if these are children of the spring-time which I have 

 named, there are also grown up and developed members of 

 the bulbous garden. Not all of them fade away like the 

 Crocus, some ripen to womanhood and charm us as the sea- 

 sons pass on. They are the Watsonias, the Gladiolus, the 

 Tigridias, the Ixias, the Montbretias, and, grandest of all, the 

 royal lineage of Lilies. Do not tell me they are too tender, 

 too easily destroyed by a child's longing hands, so that 

 they should be eliminated from our list. Emphatically no. 

 The days have passed when we were satisfied to give our 

 children the gutter and the sidewalk, the kindergarten with- 

 out the garden. It is only a question of progress when we 



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