ROSES AND LILIES 



81 



the eminent French horticulturist, M. Latour-Marliac. 

 To this gentleman's labours we owe a whole new 

 range of lovely varieties of the highest garden value. 

 Throughout the country our best amateurs are making 

 ponds and tanks on purpose for their cultm^e, and 

 some day I shall endeavour to point out how their 

 use might be adapted to some of the most highly 

 refined developments of formal or architectural 

 gardening. 



And the true Lilies, the many lovely flowers com- 

 prised within the botanical family of Lilium ; what 

 would our gardens be without them ? Ever first and 

 best comes the White Lily, emblem of spotless purity, 

 and noblest and loveliest of garden flowers. 



To my great regret this grand Lily is almost im- 

 possible to grow in my poor, hot soil, even in well- 

 prepared beds. It thrives in chalk and nearly all rich 

 loams, and I am full of a pardonable gardener's envy 

 when I drive down into the clay lands of the neigh- 

 bouring weald and see how it thrives in every cottage 

 garden. 



It is not generally known that there are two dis- 

 tinct forms of the White Lily ; one a far finer garden 

 plant than the other. The better one has altogether 

 larger flowers, with wide overlapping petals that are 

 strongly ribbed and curled back. In the other the 

 petals are narrower, and the whole flower, seen from 

 the front, is thinner and flatter, and more star-shaped. 

 Though the distinction seems of late to have been 



r 



