20 JOUENAL OF THE EOYAL HOETICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 



1629, " The chief division of Tulipas is into two sorts — Praecoces, early 

 flowering Tulipas, and Serotinae, late flowering Tulipas. For that sort 

 which is called Mediae or Dubiae do near participate with the Serotinae " ; 

 further, he denies the possibility of producing a Praecox flower from the 

 seed of a Media Tulip, although, as he says, " 1 know Clusius, an in- 

 dustrious, learned and painful searcher and publisher of these rarities, saith 

 otherwise." Miller in his " Gardener's Dictionary," 1733, says, "Tulips 

 are usually divided into three classes, but there is no occasion for making 

 any more distinctions than two, viz. early and late blowers," and he 

 enumerates five rules of beauty for the Florist's Tulip, according, as he 

 says, "to the characteristics of the best florists of the age." 



1. It shall have a tall strong stem. 



2. The flower shall consist of six leaves, three within and three 



without ; the former ought to be larger than the latter. 



3. Their bottom should be proportioned to their top, and their 



upper part should be rounded off, and not terminate in a 

 point. 



4. Their leaves should neither turn inward nor bend outward, but 



rather stand erect, and the flower should be of a middling size, 

 neither over large nor too small. 



5. The stripes should be small and regular, arising quite from the 



bottom of the flower, for if there are any remains of the former 

 self coloured bottom, the flower is in danger of losing its 

 stripes again. The chives (stamens) should not be yellow, but 

 a brown colour. When a flower has all these properties it is 

 esteemed a good one. 



Laubach, tells us of two Turkish manuscripts procured by Von Diez, 

 and now in the Archives of Berlin. The first of the two books, entitled 

 " The Habit of Flowers," was written by the Sheik Mohammed Lalezari, 

 who flourished in the reign of Sultan Achmed III., 1703-1730, and wrote 

 also for the Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha, 1718-1730. This appears from 

 the first page of the book, which says : " This is the booklet which was 

 made by order of the late Ibrahim Pasha." Lalezari, a name which 

 probably means Tupilanist, tells us that he stood in great esteem 

 by the Sultan, who gave him the pet name of Schukjuf Perweran 

 (Connoisseur of Flowers), and in his treatise deals exhaustively in two 

 chapters with the Tulip. The first of these deals with twenty species and 

 explains their points of beauty, whilst the second chapter contains 

 directions concerning the cultivation of the Tulip bulb and seeds. Refer- 

 ence is made to numbers of Tulips and Narcissi with such names as 1 Mihir 

 Sulemani ' (Beloved Sulemans), 'Ferah Efza ' (Gladness increasing), and 

 so on. 



The second manuscript bears the title " Acceptable and Beautiful." 

 It presents a systematically arranged catalogue of various sorts of one 

 flower, but is not explicit as to the name of that flower, the origin of the 

 seed, and the description of the bloom. Von Diez gives a translation as 

 follows : " As the colour of the violet, curved as the form of the new 

 Moon, her colour is well apportioned, clean, well proportioned, almond 

 shape, needle like, ornamented with pleasant rays, her inner leaves as a 



