LECTURE ON THE DAFFODIL. 



11 



as numbering five hundred, will be all cleared off in a thousand 

 years, and therefore the student of Daffodils is by no means tied up 

 to a forlorn hope. The fact is we- are perpetually endeavouring to 

 catch Nature in a net and make her endless curves and inextricable 

 windings conform to our narrow ideal geometry of straight lines and 

 sharp angles. Our perceptions are finite, and Nature's capacity of 

 production is infinite, and so in the search after knowledge we en- 

 counter difficulties at every step. I am reminded of a remarkable 

 rockwork that I once admired with such demonstration of enthusi- 

 asm, that the artist who constructed it asked me what feature of 

 the work pleased me most. I replied that the entire scheme in 

 its completeness and unity gave me great delight, because it was 

 utterly unlike anything in Nature, and in fact was an impossibility. 

 " Ah," said he, " but my notions are my own ; in my opinion that 

 is how rocks should be formed ; in these matters we have got be- 

 yond Nature." But the student of Daffodils will have to follow 

 Nature, even if while toiling along the pleasant ways of truth he 

 be always a thousand years in arrear of the knowledge that has 

 never been concealed. Permit me to tell you another anecdote, 

 which I think also illustrates the case of Verbanensis. There is a 

 Daffodil described and figured by Parkinson as Pseudonarcissus 

 anglicus flore-pleno, or " Gerarde's double Daffodil." Por twenty 

 years I sought and sighed to possess this plant, and in the season 

 of Daffodils haunted gardens everywhere in search of it, but all in 

 vain. But in the spring of 1875, while pottering about the garden 

 making notes on Narcissi, I cast my eyes in a casual way upon the 

 adjoining meadow, and at a considerable distance descried a tuft of 

 yellow flowers. Calling the gardener, Tippets, I said, " William, 

 go across the meadow and see what is that yellow flower yonder." 

 "Oh," he said with perfect confidence, "no need to go; that's 

 only a Dandelion." But my florist's eye, in " a fine frenzy rolling," 

 was not so easily satisfied ; so I went myself, and discovered in my 

 own domain, where I thought I knew every weed as a member of 

 my family, a fine clump of the veritable " Gerarde's double Daf- 

 fodil," and I dug it up and brought it into the garden, and it lives 

 and thrives to this day. Thus we may travel round the world in 



