MARCH 79 



features, inflated or contracted, lengthened or shortened, 

 more crude in colour or paler, all wanting in that 

 air of 'race' which distinguishes the best of the 

 wild species. Nor is that the worst that has been 

 perpetrated. When a human infant is born with club 

 feet, a hump-back, or some other conspicuous malfor- 

 mation, it is regarded as a serious misfortune both to 

 the infant and its parents; but when somebody 

 succeeds in raising a variety with the stamens deformed 

 into supplementary segments of the corolla, he calls 

 his acquaintance together and cries: 'Rejoice with me, 

 O my friends, for I have produced a new double 

 narcissus ! ' If the inventor is of a practical turn of 

 mind, he bestows some preposterous name on the 

 monstrosity, propagates it, advertises it widely and 

 boldly, and simple folk are lured into paying pro- 

 digious prices for bulbs, until the ,' novelty ' is super- 

 seded in distortion by something still newer and more 

 costly. No more cruel slight could be offered to the 

 memory of the son of Cephissus and Liriope, from 

 whom the whole daffodil family takes its name, than 

 this distortion of the simple type into plethoric 

 caricatures. To do so is a barbarous blunder of the 

 kind that causes some savage races to file their teeth, 

 others to flatten their heads, enlarge the lobes of their 

 ears, or to thrust huge rings into their nostrils. One 

 can make some allowance for gardeners of the olden 

 time, when cultivated species were few and novelties 

 scarce, applying themselves to raise new varieties ; but 

 there is no pretext of excuse for doing so at the 

 present d*y, when the diligence of collectors in foreign 



