THE ENGLISH OR FLORIST'S TULIP. 



143 



a show of florist's flowers is a competition, not a display, and all its 

 arrangements are made to let the flowers be examined nakedly and 

 thoroughly by experts, not to produce an " effect " on the casual spectator 

 drifting by. A show is not the best place to enjoy even a florist's flower, 

 which is at its best at home on the bed ; but it is only the stern discipline 

 of showing and the stress of competition which have made the present 

 beauty of our beds possible, for the flower that is never shown moves but 

 slowly and imperfectly along the path of improvement. 



Of course there are critics who go further and deny the " improve- 

 ment " outright : to them a wild Rose in the hedge is more than the finest 

 gold medal bloom that was ever staged ; we can only assure such critics 

 that the florist's work has consisted in taking qualities latent or dimly 



A B 

 Fig. 50.— Feathered Flowers. (A) 'Garibaldi.' (B) 'Lord Stanley.' 



seen in the wild flower, such as symmetry, texture of petal, marking, &c., 

 and pushing them to a higher degree of excellence. 



Classification. 



The Florist's Tulip belongs to the general class of late or May flower- 

 ing Tulips, being in fact only a highly specialised race of the old Dutch 

 Tulip, of which the so-called Darwin and Rembrandt Tulips constitute 

 another strain, originated in Flanders. Like all members of this class, 

 the flower, when it first blooms as a seedling, is almost invariably self- 

 coloured, in which state it is known as a " breeder " or " mother " Tulip 

 probably because of its vigour and rapid increase. At some time or other 

 it may be after a year or two, sometimes only after ten or twenty 

 years, a remarkable change comes over the breeder : the colour previously 



