On Gardeners' Flowers 



seen in Mrs. Loudon's plate Ladies' 

 Ornamental Flower Garden, Bulbous 

 Plants"). Sometimes he will try by all 

 sorts of eccentricity in the markings, 

 colours being dashed together without 

 any pretence of harmony. And still 

 further disturbance may be produced by 

 the idiotic freaks of fashion, the shape 

 which is right to-day being wrong to- 

 morrow, and perhaps right again in twenty 

 years to come. Now the Tulip is a flower 

 which ill bears to be trifled with. Under 

 cultivation it easily becomes stiff and 

 gaudy, and the utmost possible care is 

 needed to make it look well. The origi- 

 nal Tulipa Ges7ieriana I only know from 

 plates, and it is unsafe to draw compari- 

 sons from these. But the cultivated plant 

 with all its splendour is seldom perfectly 

 pleasing ; and this is certainly largely due 

 to the one-sided modes of training, which 

 seek after display alone. All our Tulips 

 must be fitted for the show-bed. Now I 

 had a garden Tulip this spring which 

 greatly impressed me by its severe and 

 simple beauty. In the shape this was 

 particularly noticeable. The corolla in its 

 lower part filled out roundly and delicately 

 like an urn, then somewhat contracted 

 upwards, and again curved outwards at 



173 



