20 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



a really beautiful large cross, entirely composed of moss 

 dotted all over with the lovely little early single Snow- 

 drops. Although I have the strongest objection to the 

 modern use of flowers for the dead, natural and lovable 

 as was the original idea, I had to admire this specimen. 

 Could a more beautiful winter memorial for a young girl 

 be seen, or one which better carries out in these cold 

 days the idea of the French poet Malherbe ? 



EUe Siait du monde oil les plus belles chosea 



Ont le pire destin ; 

 Et rose, elle a v6cu ce que yivent les roses — 



L'espaee d'un matin. 



The French have carried the abuse of this fashion of 

 funeral wreaths and crosses to an even greater extent than 

 we have here. I shall never forget once in Paris going 

 up to the Pere-Laohaise cemetery on a fine morning to 

 visit the grave of a young and much-lamented woman. 

 The wreaths were so numerous that they had to be taken 

 up in a cart the day before. The night had been wet, and 

 the surroundings of the grave were a mass of unapproach- 

 able corruption and decay. 



Last April, when I was at Kew, the gardener there 

 shook into my pocket-handkerchief a Uttle seed of 

 Cineraria cruenta, the type-plant from the Cape, and the 

 origin of aU the Cinerarias of our greenhouses. It has a 

 very different and much taller growth than the cultivated 

 ones, and I am most anxious to see if it will do in water, 

 which the ordinary ones do not. It varies in shade from 

 pale to deep lilac, rather hke a Michaelmas Daisy. Get- 

 ting seeds from abroad of type-plants is very interesting 

 gardening. Pelargoniums of all kinds are weeds at the 

 Cape, and, in order to be able to resist the long droughts, 

 they have, in South Africa, tuberous roots like Dahlias. 

 This is well seen in Andrews' 'Botanist's Eepository,' 



