34 A TOUa KOUND MT GARDEN. 



world. Figure to yourself that all those roses which bloom 

 in the garden, pale purple or purple violet, yellow or nastur- 

 tium colour, white, or mixed with purple and white, conceal 

 from your eyes numbers of innocent loves. 



The ancients placed dryads and hamadryads in trees; there 

 are nymphs quite as charming in roses. Let us go back to 

 the rose-tree of the woods. Its flower is composed of five 

 leaves or five petals : in the middle are some delicate threads, 

 supporting little yellow masses, these are the stamens ; these 

 threads surround a sort of little green egg, which is called 

 an ovary, which contains the seed or grains; the grains 

 are eggs, which the plants leave for the earth and the sun to 

 hatch, as turtles do, when they deposit their eggs in the 

 sand. The mass which surmounts the stamens is covered 

 with that yellow dust with which the bee that has just 

 disappeared over the wall had loaded its feet. Every grain 

 of that dust is a skin which contains a much finer dust, 

 which fecundates the pistil. When once the pistil fecundates, 

 the nuptial bed is taken down — the leaves of the rose fade 

 and fall, one by one ; the stamens become dry, and disappear. 

 The ovary enlarges, and becomes an oblong fruit of the shape 

 of an olive, green at first, then yellow, then orange, then 

 scarlet; then, some day, the fruit bursts, and grains of a gold 

 colour, containing eternal generations of rose-trees, fall upon 

 the earth, and there germinate. The little nymph who inhabits 

 the rose has from fifteen to twenty lovers; but all the inhabi- 

 tants of flowers have not a similar harem : that of the pink 

 has but ten husbands; the fair inhabitant of the tulip is 

 obliged to be content with six; the nymph of the Iris has 

 only three; that of the lilac two; of the red Valerian only 

 one; she who has chosen for a retreat the sumptuous poppy, 

 has around her no less than a hundred eager lovers. And 

 don't believe, my good friend, that these are lovers invented 

 by versifiers. Cut off the stamens of a rose, and isolate it; 

 you will see the petals lose their splendid colour, become 

 rusty, and faU ; but far from enlarging, and being brighter 

 in colour, the pistil also will sink barren. The hangings of 

 the nuptial bed will serve it for a winding-sheet; the rose 

 will die without leaving any posterity. The double rose is a 

 coquette of an entirely unique species; you have read fairy tales. 



