CHAPTER XII 



UNSPOILT FLOWERS 



A plant is not seen at its best when the balance between 

 leaves and blossoms has been disturbed. 



THERE is a tendency nowadays to exaggerate the value 

 of flowers and to depreciate the charm of leaves. This 

 is encouraged by the efforts of the worker among the 

 flowers the skilled florist who is liable to sacrifice all 

 sorts of characteristics, if by doing so he is thereby enabled 

 to provide a plant with larger or more richly coloured 

 blossoms. Excluding those plants of which the blooms 

 are inconspicuous and the leaves their only claim on the 

 gardener's consideration, we may take almost any plant 

 we like, and, comparing it with the wilding from which 

 it has developed, shall find that its flowers have an exagger- 

 ated value. They are not in just proportion to its leaves. 

 While in one way this stands self-condemned as an artificial 

 evolution, regarded from another point of view, the out- 

 look of most plant growers, it is only natural, for it is 

 but human to love flowers with a greater love than leaves. 

 Not only have the florists encouraged this, they have 

 taught us to believe that a plant is only worth growing 

 for the sake of its blossoms. Yet those who cherish grace 



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