THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN 



yellow; its leaves very low, large, and of a fine 

 bluish-green; the blooms open wide, their four 

 petals at the top of the stalk, like lilies held erect, 

 and the inside of each petal seems to take on a 

 certain pallor toward the centre, leaving an edge 

 of deeper tone. The effect is indescribably beau- 

 tiful in its way — a tulip swan-song, thought I, as 

 I gazed. 



A fine tulip new to me last spring was Nau- 

 ticas. Here the color within the petals is Vin de 

 Bordeaux No. 1, shading toward the upper edges 

 to Rose Ulace No. 2.* The inner basal spots of 

 Nauticas are of Indigo grisS,tre No. 1, very strik- 

 ing in effect; and the leaves of this tall tulip were 

 of so rarely good a green that even their color was 

 recorded. It proved to be a trifle darker than 

 Vert bouteille No. 4. If any reader wonders at 

 my enthusiasm for this tulip, a flower incompara- 

 ble as it seems to me, let him place next each other 

 the color plates here mentioned, imagine a finely 

 rising stem and large broad leaves, of the richest 

 of greens, crowned by a rose-purple flower of per- 

 fect form. He will wonder no more that the tulip 

 is thus commended. 



* Color references apply either to the French color chart " Repertoire de 

 Couleurs," or to "Color Standards and Color Nomenclature," by Dr. 

 Robert Ridgway. 



118 



