118 APRIL 



With the fleeting names that gardeners choose to 

 give florist's flowers there is no cause for quarrel. 

 These may be dismissed as lightly as flowers of this 

 sort were dismissed by Perdita : 



* Carnations and streaked gilliflowers, 

 Which some call nature's bastards ; of that kind 

 Our rustick garden's barren, and I care not 

 To get slips of them ..... 



I '11 not put 



The dibble in the earth to set one slip of them ; 

 No more than, were I painted, I would wish 

 This youth should say 'twere well ; and only therefore 

 Desire to breed by me.' 



It matters not though a rose should come to be 

 named Dr. Tanner, or a pseony Tim Healy, even as 

 a rhododendron has already been ticketed W. E. 

 Gladstone. 



Yet there lies a fine old-world light upon some 

 names in the florist's catalogues, reflected from the 

 days when men paid a knight's ransom for a single 

 tulip bulb. Of such are Grootvoorst, Pottebakker, 

 and Keizerkroon. One may even stomach Apotheker 

 Bogren, whereby a handsome hellebore is distin- 

 guished. But the French are happiest in their 

 florist's names. Among the white hyacinths are 

 such pretty titles as La Belle Blanchisseuse, La Pucelle 



