266 
Old Time Gardens 
In varied shades of blue, purple, lilac, pink, and 
white, Bachelor’s Buttons are found in every old 
garden, growing in a confused tangle of “ lytle leaves ” 
and vari-colored flowers, very happily and with very 
good effect. The illustration on page 258 shows their 
growth and value in the garden. 
In The Promise of May Dora’s eyes are said to be 
as blue as the Bluebell, Harebell, Speedwell, Blue- 
bottle, Succory, Forget-me-not, and Violets; so we 
know what flowers Tennyson deemed blue. 
Another poet named as the bluest flower, the 
Monk’s-hood, so wonderful of color, one of the 
very rarest of garden tints ; graceful of growth, 
blooming till frost, and one of the garden’s delights. 
In a list of garden flowers published in Boston, in 
1828, it is called Cupid’s Car. Southey says in 
The Doctor, of Miss Allison’s garden: “ The Monk’s- 
hood of stately growth Betsey called ‘ Dumbledores 
Delight,’ and was not aware that the plant, in whose 
helmet- rather than cowl-shaped flowers, that busy 
and best-natured of all insects appears to revel more 
than any other, is the deadly Aconite of which she 
read in poetry.”. The dumbledore was the bumble- 
bee, and this folk name was given, as many others 
have been, from a close observance of plant habits ; 
for the fertilization of the Monk’s-hood is accom- 
plished only by the aid of the bumblebee. 
Many call Chicory or Succory our bluest flower. 
Thoreau happily termed it “ a cool blue.” It is not 
often the fortune of a flower to be brought to notice 
and affection because of a poem ; we expect the 
poem to celebrate the virtues of flowers already 
