II 
SPRING 
53 
thousands come to England every year from 
Holland. When the first settlers at the Cape 
went out to South Africa from Holland, the 
most familiar flower to them was the tulip, 
and being only ignorant “ Boers ” or peasants, 
they could not see that there were no real, 
tulips growing wild in South Africa at all, but 
they called all the spring flowers “tulips,” and 
it is curious to this day to hear hundreds of 
people calling various plants, especially a very 
common small “ morea,” or kind of iris, a tulip. 
But there is no such confusion in the minds of 
English children, and they know the bright 
cuplike flowers of the tulip well. 
I wonder if you know the fairy-tale which 
tells how if a tulip is kissed when open in the 
sunshine a tiny fairy will come out of it ? I 
used often to try the experiment, but perhaps 
it was want of good enough sight that pre¬ 
vented me finding the fairy. There are dwarf 
tulips and tall tulips, and both early and late 
flowering ones, little ones that stand erect like 
small soldiers, and the tall “ parrot ” tulips, 
which open their more untidy, but more artis¬ 
tic, drooping heads in May. There is a great 
variety to choose from, as the bewildering lists 
of names in the bulb catalogues testify, but all 
of them require care, good soil, and an open 
sunny exposure ; should they also be sheltered 
