TULIP. 



283 



It seems to be the more general opinion that all 

 flowers, in their natural state, are undeveloped, that 

 they require the florist's cunning hand to become per- 

 fect, and that some one, with authority to speak, must 

 say what constitutes the perfect flower, and when a 

 given form has reached that state. We wish to dissent 

 from that view most emphatically. While we are willing 

 to admit that certain forms and colors have been mate- 

 rially developed by the florists' skill, we assert, without 

 fear of contradiction, that no floral form is more perfect, 

 no colors more intense or better defined, than the orig- 

 inal forms possessed, and that all our skill in cultivation 

 can only restore to the flower the properties that have 

 been lost, in the long ages when there was no kindly 

 hand to assist in its struggles with stronger forms, to 

 gain a supremacy. Cultivation will enable the flower, 

 or the plant upon which it grows, to reach that perfec- 

 tion which its creation entailed ; it can do no more. 



The cultivation of the Tulip has restored its original 

 size and strength ; aided by cross-fertilization it has 

 given new forms, or shapes of flower, a marked change 

 in colors, or in their distribution, and has been the 

 means of developing that taste and love for the beautiful 

 in the flower that keeps apace with the intelligence and 

 refinement of the age. Our perfected single Tulips are 

 simply restored natural forms. 



Garden or Show Tulips. — The more popular 

 Tulips for the garden are what are usually known as 

 Late Flowering Tulips, single forms; these are divided 

 into several distinct classes, all of which had their origin 

 in Tulipa Gesneriana, a native of the Levant, and com- 

 mon in Syria and Persia. It was brought to Europe 

 from Persia in 1559, and was cultivated at Constan- 

 tinople. From this city it found its way over Europe, 

 under the name of the Turkish Tulip ; and it was first 

 botanically described by Gesner, a Swiss botanist resid- 



