JFlotoers antr Voices. 289 



ily form hybrids. Even the big annual deserves 

 a space somewhere in the rear garden, and 

 merits the encomium of Clare : 



Sunflowers, planted for their gilded show, 

 That scale the lattice windows ere they blow. 



In the mythology of the ancient Peruvians it 

 occupied an important place, and was employed 

 as a mystic decoration in ancient Mexican sculpt- 

 ure. Like the lotus of the East, it is equally a 

 sacred and an artistic emblem, figuring in the 

 symbolism of Mexico and Peru, where the Span- 

 iards found it rearing its aspiring stalk in the 

 fields, and serving in the temples as a sign and 

 a decoration, the sun -god's officiating hand- 

 maidens wearing upon their breasts representa- 

 tions of the sacred flower in beaten gold. Nu- 

 merous varieties of the great -disked sunflower 

 exist. It is the art of the gardener to know 

 how to place them. I turn to old Gerarde to 

 find him an enthusiast over the great flower of 

 gold. His cultural directions still hold good : 

 " The seed must be set or sowne in the begin- 

 ning of Aprill, if the weather be temperate, in 

 the most fertile ground that may be, and where 

 the sun hath most power the whole day." And 

 where is the florist or botanist who can paint the 

 marigold of Peru as vividly as it was etched in 



