226 WOOD AND GARDEN" 



velvet cut, the appearance is often so dissimilar tliat 

 they may look quite different in colour. A -working 

 painter is never happy if you give him an oil-colour 

 pattern to match in distemper ; he must have it of the 

 same texture, or he will not undertake to get it Kke. 



What a wonderful range of colouring there is in 

 black alone to a trained colour-eye ! There is the duU 

 brown-black of soot, and the velvety brown-black of 

 the bean-flower's blotch ; to my own eye, I have never 

 found anything so entirely black in a natural product 

 as the patch on the lower petals of Iris iberica. Is it 

 not Ruskin who says of Velasquez, that there is more 

 colour in his black than ia many another painter's 

 whole palette ? The blotch of the bean-flower appears 

 black at first, tUl you look at it close in the suidight, 

 and then you see its rich velvety texture, so nearly like 

 some of the brown-velvet markings on butterflies' 

 wings. And the same kind of rich colour and texture 

 occurs again on some of the tough flat half-round 

 funguses, marked with shaded rings, that grow out of 

 old posts, and that I always enjoy as lessons of lovely 

 colour-harmony of grey and brown and black. 



Much to be regretted is the disuse of the old word 

 murrey, now only employed in heraldry. It stands for 

 a dull red-purple, such as appears in the flower of the 

 Virginian Allspice, and in the native Hound's-tongue, 

 and often in seedling Aiuriculas. A fine strong-growing 

 boarder Auricula was given to me by my valued friend 

 thei\Cqijiitor of the Trinity College Botanic Garden, 



