On Gardeners' Flowers 



below, and allowed to curve upwards 

 naturally. The waved streaks then assist 

 the form. Tulips, too, look much less 

 stiff when allowed to send up a sprout or 

 two from the principal bulb, and ordinary 

 garden Tulips can easily afford to do so. 



Note 5 



One of the very worst symptoms of our 

 modern taste is its love of variegated 

 foliage. Leaves are the shadow of the 

 plant ; their colour needs essentially 

 breadth and repose, as a foil to the light 

 of the flowers. It is true that Nature 

 will now and then give us leaf colouring 

 of rare and delicate beauty, like that of 

 the Cissus, or many kinds of tinting in 

 purple and red ; but still the main effect 

 is nearly always quiet and subdued. Now 

 look at our summer flower-beds ; look at 

 that Scarlet Geranium whose leaf edges 

 are broadly buttered round with cream 

 colour (I can use no other term which 

 will express the vulgarity of the effect) ; 

 consider first the harshness of the leaf 

 colouring in itself, then its want of relation 

 to the form, and finally what a degrada- 

 tion this is of the clear, beautiful, and 

 restful contrast which we find in the plain 



175 



