4 FIKST STUDIES IN PLANT LIFE 



buds helps to keep fresh our friendship. This plant I 

 brought from Lake Tyers, four years ago : it recalls a 

 pleasant holiday. And here are a dozen pansies raised 

 from seed sent to me by a friend in Scotland. Beside 

 these are tulips from bulbs sent out straight from 

 Holland. 



7. This Httle scarlet pimpernel — the poor man's 

 -weather-glass,* takes one straight to England. It has 

 sprung up with the lawn-seed, and is trying to be at 

 home in a strange land where rain-clouds are rare. 

 The love lily of South Africa stands close to the 

 belladonna lily that found its way from the Cape to 

 England when James of Scotland was King. And 

 here, on the border, is an acanthus that grew in 

 Greece when sculptors were learning to give the 

 charm of flower and leaf to their stately temples. 

 On the fence beyond is the creeper that reminds us of 

 the rich lands of Virginia, and, beside it, the smaller- 

 leaved variety that came to us from Japan. 



8. The scent of wall-flower draws us to a plant that 

 reached England from the Mediterranean in the 

 Middle Ages. This chrysanthemum carries the 

 thought to a valley of China, and the dahlia beside it 

 takes us to its native haunts in Mexico. It is in 

 Mexico, too, that we find this sunflower at home. 

 Yonder golden patch of poppies is from the foothills 

 of California — the Californian poppyt. These sweet 

 peas on the fence lead us back again from America 

 to Europe, and we seek the old home of the sweet 

 pea in the valleys of Sicily. This white peony is from 

 Siberia. Did it catch its colour from the snow ? It 



* So called because it shuts up before rain, 

 t EBchscboltzia. 



