134 
FLORA AND SYLVA 
than a foot long, of deep shining green, and 
in young plants prostrate, arching when older. 
The flower-stem is at first short, but lengthens, 
with a succession of flowers, of which the last 
are generally the finest. On a strong mature 
plant they are nearly 4 inches across and 2 to 
3 inches deep in the tube, the limb being 
divided into four broad lobes of soft rosy- 
carmine, deepening towards the yellow tube, 
and relieved by handsome white blotches in 
the throat. Instead of appearing in a cluster, 
they are borne upon separate stalks, each flower 
lasting ten or twelve days and mature plants 
blooming for three weeks or more, with 
spreading tufts of foliage and as many as a 
dozen flower-stems towards the end of May or 
early in June. It is easily raised and grown 
from seed in rich, free soil, but seedlings take 
three or four years to flower. 
Golden (perennial) Trumpet Flower (/. 
lutea) . — A fine plant not yet introduced, which 
in habit and general character approaches /. 
Delavayi, but is shorter in leaf and in length 
of stem. The flowers, about 2 inches long 
and wide, are carried in clusters of clear 
yellow. Western China. 
Princess' Trumpet Flower (/. Olga). — 
A handsome perennial of shrubby habit, and 
hardy in all but cold districts. Its pretty cut 
leaves are borne upon long, straggling stems of 
4 or 5 feet, which rather spoil its beauty. The 
tubular flowers, about an inch long and wide, 
are of a pretty pale pink, borne in loose clusters 
upon very short stalks during summer. Its 
colour is pleasing, and in a sunny border against 
a wall it is not without eff^ect. Brought from 
Turkestan by way of Russia in 1 8 80, and named 
after the Princess Olga. Syn. /. Kooptnannii. 
Crimson (perennial) Trumpet Flower 
(/. princeps). — A new species, of which little 
is yet known save that it bears flowers of a 
bright red. 
Chinese Trumpet Flower (/. si/iensis). — 
This fine kind is of good habit, with large 
flowers of scarlet or bright crimson upon very 
short stalks. It is best grown as an annual or 
biennial from seed sown during summer. 
Being tender, it must be wintered under glass 
and planted in the spring, blooming during 
summer upon stems 2 to 3 feet high. There 
is a form with large flowers of reddish-purple. 
Fern-leaved Trumpet Flower (/. varia- 
bilis). — Also a native of China, introduced in 
1887, but little known in gardens. It is a 
shrubby perennial of fine habit, but only hardy 
in light, warm soils and in mild districts. If 
sown early, seedhngs not infrequently flower 
the same season. The flowers, borne upon 
stems of about 2 feet, are an inch long and of 
a beautiful light rose, with finely cut foliage 
of vivid green. It is beautiful for several 
weeks during late summer and early autumn, 
and though scarce is sometimes well seen in 
Devonshire gardens. B. 
Apple-trees in Bloom. — It makes no differ- 
ence that you have seen forty or fifty springs ; 
each one is as new, every process as fresh, and 
the charm as fascinating as if you had never 
witnessed a single one. Nature repeats ever 
the same things ; every year since our boyhood 
it has been following the same routine. There, 
for instance, is the Apple-tree, standing low to 
the ground, with a round and homely head, 
without an element of grandeur or poetry, 
except once a year. In the month of May, 
Apple-trees go a-courting. Love is evermore 
father of poetry. And the month of May finds 
the orchard no longer a plain, sober, business 
aff^air, but the gayest and most radiant frolicker 
of the year. We have seen human creatures 
whose ordinary life was dutiful and prosaic. 
But when some extraordinary excitement of 
grief, or, more likely, of deep love, had mastered 
them, they broke forth into a richness of feel- 
ing that mounted up into the kingdom of 
beauty, and for the transient hour they glowed 
with poetry. And so to us seems an Apple- 
j tree when May seems to stir up a love heat in 
i its veins. The old, round-topped, crooked- 
trunked, and ungainly-boughed fellow drops 
all world-ways, and takes to itself a new idea of 
life. Those little stubbed spurs that, all the 
year, had seemed like rheumatic fingers, or 
thumbs and fingers stifi^ened and stubbed by 
work, now are transformed. All its crooked- 
ness is hidden by the sheets of blossoms, and 
the whole top is changed to a royal dome. 
What if you have seen it before, ten thousand 
times over An Apple-tree in full blossom is 
like a message, sent fresh from heaven to 
earth, of purity and beauty ! — Henry Ward 
Beecher. 
