8o AN ISLAND GARDEN 



the combinations of their wonderful hues, or even 

 half, would be quite impossible, from the simple 

 transparent scarlet bell of the wild Poppy to the 

 marvelous pure white, the wonder of which no 

 tongue can tell. Oh, these white Poppies, some 

 with petals more delicate than the finest tissue 

 paper, with centres of bright gold, some of thicker 

 quality, large, shell-like petals, almost ribbed in 

 their effect, their green knob in the middle like a 

 boss upon a shield, rayed about with beautiful 

 grayish yellow stamens, as in the kind called the 

 Bride. Others they call this kind the Snowdrift 

 have thick double flowers, deeply cut and fringed 

 at the edges, the most opaque white, and full of 

 exquisite shadows. Then there are the Iceland- 

 ers, which Lieutenant Peary found making gay 

 the frosty fields of Greenland, in buttercup-yel- 

 low and orange and white; the great Orientals, 

 gorgeous beyond expression ; the immense single 

 white California variety. I could not begin to 

 name them all in the longest summer's day ! The 

 Thorn Poppy, Argemone, is a fascinating variety, 

 most quaint in method of growth and most dec- 

 orative. As for the Shirleys, they are children 

 of the dawn, and inherit all its delicate, vivid, 

 delicious suffusions of rose-color in every con- 

 ceivable shade. Of the Poppy one of the great 

 masters of English prose discourses in this wise. 

 Speaking of the common wild Poppy of the Eng- 

 lish fields, which grows broadcast also over most 

 of Europe, he says : " The splendor of it is proud, 

 almost insolently so," which immediately brings to 

 mind Browning's lines in " Sordello," 



