BULB BARNS, NAMES, AND GROWERS 113 



the frost is a very important consideration. Some 

 barns are very carefully protected against frost ; 

 some I know are carefully and systematically 

 warmed during the winter months, and never, 

 winter and summer, is the range of buildings 

 empty. Standing in one of these, a curious 

 thought comes ; one realises, as one looks at the 

 crowded shelves and remembers those of other 

 barns beyond, that, could some cataclysm destroy 

 the ornamental flora of the world, but leave un- 

 touched this range of barns with their contents (as 

 Noah's ark in the Deluge), there would still be a 

 good start for repeopling the world with flowers. 

 Representatives from all quarters of the globe 

 are to be found in those barns, bulbs proper, and 

 corms, and tubers, and all the variously named 

 houses of stored plant life. Besides the hyacinth 

 and tulip of historic fame, and the humbler crocus 

 and snowdrop, there are calochortus of California, 

 tigridias of Mexico, begonias of Jamaica, tuberoses 

 of Persia, gloxinias and achimenes, cannas and 

 crinums, amaryllis and arums — flowers native to 

 all parts of the world, brought in the first instance 

 by indefatigable collectors, who often have faced real 

 enough perils in their work — the cold in Siberia, the 

 heat in Africa, hunger and thirst* the ever prob- 



15 



