THE EANUNCULUS. 



Ranunculus Asiaticus. 



i '^SHION may be allied to folly, 

 but it is often the conerete 

 expression of inevitable cir- 

 cumstances. Flowers become 

 fashionable^ and after a time 

 they become unfashionablej 

 and in certain particular cases 

 that have been inquired into 

 it was discovered that the de- 

 termining cause was not to 

 be found in man so much as 

 in nature. When for several 

 years in succession certain 

 flowers have, through unfa- 

 vourable weather, failed to re- 

 ward their cultivators and 

 admirers, those same flowers 

 have gone out of fashion, 

 although what we properly 

 understand as fashion had 

 little or nothing to do with 

 it. The hollyhock has of late years been out of fashion, 

 owing to the prevalence of a destructive fungus which 

 first disfigures the plant and finally destroys it. The 



