Flowers and Gardens 



us wonder? Rhododendrons are very 

 beautiful, but they cannot supply that 

 loss. Strange ! and yet it was a strange- 

 ness which sprang almost from beneath 

 our feet, out of what seemed most familiar, 

 and not like that of some far-fetched 

 tropical growth. This strangeness ex- 

 cited strong interest, and, as it were, 

 difficulty of belief, it seemed so very 

 near ; the strangeness of tropical plants 

 excites much less of this, for we can 

 credit with more ease what belongs to 

 countries so far away, and of which we 

 know so little. And surely in that child- 

 world, where everything is wonderful, it 

 is better that we should have our deepest 

 interest aroused by such plants as our 

 own Wake-robin than by any of those 

 distant curiosities. I use the old name 

 Wake-robin because it is so full of poetry 

 — to think of the bird aroused from sleep 

 by the soundless ringing of that bell. 

 Arum, or Lords and Ladies, is the more 

 usual name. In none of those plants, 

 then, which I mentioned above, do I see 

 unfitness for the garden. They have 

 not the dulness and heaviness of the 

 Stachys and many other Dead Nettles 

 (the dulness of the Henbane is widely 

 other), nor the coarseness of Charlock or 

 124 



