70 DUTCH BULBS AND GARDENS 



conceive of anyone giving them now, unless it 

 is one grower to another similarly interested) — 

 an admirer giving them in 1840 could convey 

 the compliment, " You are radiant with charms." 

 In the opinion of those times "the dazzling 

 Ranunculus adorns our gardens with its brilliant 

 flowers, glowing with a thousand colours, resplen- 

 dent with a thousand charms. Scarcely any plant 

 affords so rich a view." Now we think quite 

 otherwise. 



Anemones at that same time stood for the 

 melancholy word " Forsaken " ; this probably on 

 account of the Greek legend of their origin, — a 

 legend of the order not unfamiliar in Greek 

 mythology, the loves of the gods, the jealousies of 

 the goddesses, the metamorphosis of the object, and 

 the desertion of the lover. In this case Zephyr, 

 who abandoned the nymph, thus transformed by 

 Flora, to the rude caresses of Boreas, who, unable 

 to gain her love, shakes her afresh every spring. 

 This legend probably belonged, in the first instance, 

 to the earlier blooming Star Anemones and 

 Hepaticas, those flowers at whose opening old 

 gardeners used to say, "the earth is in love, now 

 is the time to sow." These, too, are grown in 

 Holland, and have been since the day when 



