16 DUTCH BULBS AND GARDENS 



twenty florets on a stalk, five open at once, a per- 

 fection by no means always obtained. 



By the white gladioli is a great patch of the 

 taller and later blooming sort, not yet fully out, but 

 already showing hints of their gorgeous colours, 

 salmon and scarlet, pale yellow and delicate mauve. 

 All the many tints to be found among them since 

 the discovery of varieties at the Cape (where, by 

 the way, the corms are eaten by the Hottentots) 

 has allowed of endless crossings and hybridisings, 

 and has removed them in beauty far from the 

 few indigenous European sorts. Those of which 

 Parkinson wrote with the satisfaction of one catch- 

 ing a famous rival tripping : " Gerard mistaketh 

 the French kind for the Italian." 



In the ground which surrounds the grower's 

 house are to be found the choice varieties. This 

 ground is not often divided into big fields devoted 

 to some one or two kinds of bulbs only. It is 

 more usually given up to smaller patches of special 

 flowers, or new flowers, things which need care, or 

 watching, or else are experiments. It is here there 

 is likely to have been first seen green ixias (Ixia 

 viridifiora) in bloom, and the strange sound of their 

 dry rustling heard, — the sound which, taken in 

 conjunction with their colour, the blue-green of 



