CONSERVATORIES 



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of them of shocking colour ; of hundreds of pots 

 of Calceolaria and Cineraria ; no stove half full of 

 uninteresting Acliimenes, a family of plants I confess 

 to disliking ; without grace or beauty of form, in 

 colour either washy or distinctly displeasing, and 

 needing to be tied up to an infinity of small sticks. 

 Indeed, except for the red velvet leaf of Gesnera 

 exoniensis, sumptuous under lamp-light, and the fine 

 colour of one or two Tydseas, I am altogether shy of 

 gesneraceous plants. 



But I would have ropes and swags of the scarlet 

 Passion-flower (P. racemosa), and plenty of that goodly 

 white-flowered company, Stephanotis and Gardenia and 

 Eucharis and Pancratium, and the glowing Hibismis 

 rosa-sinensis, and the great yellow Allamanda, And 

 with them the large-flowered Oriental Jasmines, and 

 quantities of fresh -colom-ed tender foliage of the 

 beautiful Ferns of the tropics. Here, as in every 

 other part of the garden, I would avoid the usual 

 weary inharmonious mixture ; I would fight against 

 the mental slothfulness of easy heterogeneous 

 agglomeration, and steadfastly resist the common 

 and irritating jumble of all kinds of irreconcilable 

 forms of vegetation. Even of distinctly beautiful 

 plants there are nearly always too many sorts 

 brought together. Of such things as Croton and 

 Caladium and Begonia Rex, a dozen plants of one 

 kind of each will make a handsome group, and two 

 dozen a still better one, while twelve or twenty-four 



