MAY 303 



done by planting in England the type Tulips, and leaving 

 them to their fate, especially on chalky soils, which they 

 seem to like. 



The Crown Imperials are nearly over. They have not 

 been as good as usual this year ; the hard frosts in March 

 blackened their poor crowns. A kind correspondent was 

 shocked at my non-botanical language in speaking of the 

 beads of liquid in the hanging flowers as water, not honey. 

 I merely meant that they looked like pure water. He 

 writes : ' I think on examination you will find them honey. 

 As you do not mention it, you may not know of the legend 

 in connection with this flower, which is as follows. Please 

 forgive me if a twice-told tale : When our Lord in His 

 agony was walking in the Garden of Gethsemane, all the 

 flowers save this one alone bowed their heads in sym- 

 pathetic sorrow. It held its head aloft in supreme 

 disdain ; whereupon our Lord gently rebuked it. Smitten 

 with shame at last, it hung its head, and since then has 

 never been able to raise it, and those who care to turn its 

 face upwards always find tears in its eyes.' He closed his 

 letter with the following practical hint : ' For protective 

 purposes shelters you may find the bamboo baskets in 

 which moist sugar is sent from South America, about 

 three feet high 'and nearly six feet round, when split 

 open on one side and flattened out make good light 

 shelters.' 



I am very fond of reading old ' Edinburghs ' and 

 ' Quarterlies,' and one is apt to find in them a helpful con- 

 tribution to anything that one may have been thinking 

 about. This happened to me the other day when, taking 

 up the ' Quarterly Eeview ' for July 1863, I came upon a 

 most fascinating article, full of folk-lore and tradition, 

 called ' Sacred Trees and Flowers.' I should delight in 

 quoting several of the stories, but room fails me. Work- 

 ing through all the older traditions of Europe, the writer 



