50 FAMILIAR GARDEN FLOWERS. 



deciduous trees. Go to Lincoln's Inn Fields in June, and 

 there you shall see, flowering freely, a line collection ot 

 varieties of Crataegus oxyaeantha in a most thriving state in 

 the very heart of smoky London, where earth and air have 

 been poisoned by coal-smoke for centuries. Go to Troutbeck 

 la July, and walk up the Vale to Kirkstone Pass, and you 

 may see thousands of hawthorns blooming gaily, and you 

 may note by the herbage and the colour of the soil that 

 they are all located on a basis of starvation, where oaks 

 and elms would no more grow than they would on a cheese- 

 plate. And you may go to Cobham Park, and see huge 

 " creeping " thorns thriving in a good soil that produces 

 the finest timber ; and after this, wherever you meet with 

 thorns, you will probably note that they are almost careless 

 of conditions, as though endowed with a special power of 

 adapting themselves to any circumstances short of being 

 made into faggots and put upon the fire. And they adapt 

 themselves to that fairly well, for thornwood is capital 

 fuel, but the adaptation is of quite a temporary nature. 



The inexperienced observer who notes the immense 

 difference between the " hawthorn in the dale " and the 

 double-flowered tree of the garden will be disposed to 

 regard them as distinct species, for indeed the distance in 

 time as well as in appearance from one to the other is 

 great. Nevertheless, the nature of the transition may be 

 studied on the hills and in the woods, for there will be 

 found among the wild thorns examples varying in the 

 colours of their flowers from the purest white to several 

 shades of blush, flesh, and rosy pink ; and the scientific 

 observer will readily and properly conclude that by 

 systematic selection and raising plants from seed many 

 fine varieties might soon be obtained, even if our present 



