88 5T|)e (Sfarfccn's Sbtorj. 



to select a corsage-bouquet from the infinite 

 number of nineteenth-century varieties, each 

 one more bewitching than the other ! I find 

 three hundred kinds in Barr's catalogue alone, 

 with scores of undiscovered ones running wild 

 through the Pyrenees, and who knows how many 

 more new hybrids to be heard from ? Parkinson 

 and Hale would have been beside themselves at 

 the multitudinous forms and varieties. The daf- 

 fodil is a flower for every one, and no spring 

 garden is a garden in the full sense of the word 

 without the grace and gayety it lends. Orchids 

 are very well, yet they never seem to me to be 

 a flower to excite special envy; we know they 

 are beyond the reach of the masses, and that 

 only a millionaire can grow them. Not so with 

 the daffodil, which every one can enjoy in mod- 

 eration, though a fine collection may be made a 

 very expensive luxury as flowers go.* 



Of all floral catalogues, a daffodil catalogue 

 is the most exquisitely tantalizing. The further 

 you read, the deeper the gold ; and you are 

 even met with 



Apples of gold in pictures of silver. 



* The term daffodil I have used in its general sense. 

 Specifically speaking, in many cases the term Narcissus 

 would naturally be employed. 



