THE ENGLISH OK FLORIST'S TULIP. 



149 



variations from year to year ; if a bulb yielding a feathered flower gets 

 at all big and over-vigorous, it is apt to flower too full of colour, and to 

 produce more or less a flamed flower. More often perhaps, ill-defined 

 patches of colour, or a total break in the marking, mar the symmetry of 

 a feathered flower ; one must grow as many bulbs as possible of feathered 

 strains and trust to getting some of them as nearly right as may be. 

 Without doubt correct cultivation will increase the proportion of well- 

 marked blooms ; one must aim at getting sound and well- ripened bulbs, 

 avoiding especially the grossness and overgrowth produced by rich soil 

 or manure. Free exposure in the early months of the year, so as to 

 secure a slow growth, seems to aid in producing refined flowers ; the 

 strong premature growth, which results from early planting or leaving 



A B 

 Fig. 53. — Feathered Flowers. (A) 1 Bessie.' (B) ' Count.' 



the bulbs in the ground, generally flushes the whole bloom with un- 

 desirable colour. Most varieties seem to throw fewer and fewer feathered 

 blooms as they age ; of some sorts, once famous as feathered flowers, 

 practically only the flamed state is now known ; but this is not invariably 

 true, as may be seen in the case of ' Count ' or ' Comte de Vergennes,' an 

 old Dutch or Flemish variety known to have been cultivated for more 

 than a century, yet yielding feathered flowers with regularity to-day. 

 Because of this tendency to go flamed and because of their inevitable 

 inconstancy, the Tulip fancier should grow on to blooming size every 

 offset he can find of finely feathered varieties. 



In the flamed state the flower possesses, in addition to the feathering 

 on the edge, a bold beam of the same colour up the centre of the petal, 

 branching out into pencilled streaks to mingle with the feathering. 



