1881. ] 
MR. HORNER S LECTURE ON THE AURICULA. 
G9 
tougue in human kind, so is the tail of the dog 
among beasts. In power and variety of expression, 
these two extremes meet. Their equivalent in the 
Auricula is its tube. No outer brilliancy compen¬ 
sates for a central failure here. The whole truth of 
the flower lies in this little well! It should be 
circular, sharply cut, and bright yellow. A rich gold 
tube bathes the flower in a sunshine of its own, and 
lights up into life and radiance features that in 
themselves may be dull and common-place. But 
the tube that is pale green casts a moonlight effect 
around it that strikes all brightness dim and cold. 
Not only do we dislike, but we distrust a pale tube 
in the Auricula. One thus weak is never otherwise 
strong. Watery colours are associated with thin 
textures, and thus a flower so constituted cannot live 
out half its days. Like a noble ship with all her 
canvas set, but a rotten timber at her keel, the 
beautiful flower goes down, all standing. 
“ Florists are called punctilious and severe—so 
they are, but it is with reason that they are parti¬ 
cular to a point and exacting to a shade. 
“ The Primulas being dimorphous in the relative 
position of their stamens and pistil, it has been 
thought a fanciful and narrow choice that we should 
adhere to that form only wherein the anthers are set 
round the mouth of the golden tube, and the pistil at 
the bottom, rejecting the long-styled or pin-eyed 
arrangement. With what comparison shall I illus¬ 
trate the reason of our choice ? I will take, for 
example, the difference between the eye of sculp¬ 
ture and of life. You know the vacant stare of the 
one, the vivacity and soul that speak and sparkle in 
the other. The stony, lifeless eye in an Auricula 
is the pin-eyed tube, with the set, expressionless 
pistil its one hard-set feature. But where the 
delicately gold-dusted anthers are set round the 
eye of the flower, and the obtrusive stigma is all 
but sessile on its ovary below, we have the fulness, 
softness, and play of what is happily termed the 
‘ mossy eye.’ It is the counterpart in the flower 
of the living eye that is so much in the character 
of a face. 
“ But I pass on to the next feature on the coloured 
disc, and that is the white circle we term the 
paste. This is a dry, snowy meal, and it must be 
round and broad, and bright and dense. Where 
these properties are wanting, the flower has, accord¬ 
ing as the faultiness may be, a sleepy, unwashed, 
ill-tempered, mean, cramped, crabbed, miserly 
look. Thus, a lively paste and a golden tube, each 
sharply cut and circular, are supreme points in a 
good Auricula. Now we come to a zone or circle 
further outwards on the corolla. What contrast to 
snowy meal, lovelier and more rare, could a flower 
give us than a sudden change to the softest 
velvet ? Such is the texture of the ring of colour 
koown as the ground or body. Black has been the 
most usual, largely because black was the favourite 
colour with so many of the old growers. There 
have been strange local antipathies to anything but 
black, a prejudice which we will hope to see over¬ 
come by the winning argument of equally true and 
beautiful edged flowers with blue and crimson 
grounds. 
“ It is true that the best of the old flowers are 
those with black body colours; but the reason is 
that the Auricula, as if unwilling to cast her pearls 
before the unappreciative, has made few offers of 
gifts that were not sought, and would not be valued 
at their worth. But in whatever colour this velvet 
zone exists, it is imperative that it be pure, un¬ 
spotted, that is to say, with any of the meal that 
may lie on the edge beyond it, or on the paste 
within. Colours also should remain true and fast— 
not fading into weaker shades before the other 
parts of the flower grow old. The last remaining 
portion of colouring on the flower is that wonderful 
circle of green, or grey, or white that bounds the 
blossoms, and determines by its nature the class to 
which a variety belongs. 
“ I will gather into one word that important 
point, the share which the flowers of all the classes 
should apportion to all their zones, and that single 
word is Balance. Taking the pistil as the centre, 
then across the half-flower as a radius line, the tube, 
paste, body, and edge should be in the proportion of 
equal breadths. The tube should be bold, with 
highly-developed anthers, and the paste quite its 
full breadth, and, indeed, in the case of the Selfs 
rather over that, for in them the body colour really 
represents two zones, and, therefore, for good 
balance the paste should represent rather more 
than one, or the flower will look heavy. Body 
colours flash towards the edge, but are not to run 
out at the petal-corners, or an angular look is the 
result. However, the body should not consist of 
only flashes, but have a solid foundation-ring, the 
more solid the better. Where this is not so, the 
pencilled work has a thin and scratchy appearance. 
“ III. Culture. —As to the culture of the florist 
Auricula, it is not within the province of this lecture 
to give you a complete calendar of cultural opera¬ 
tions. But it may be amusing for a moment to peep 
into the potting-sheds of the old masters. It was a 
school of cookery for the Auricula, in which the 
plants themselves were often victimised. The com¬ 
post-heaps were not so much an honest provision- 
shop for the flower, as its confectioner’s or druggist’s, 
where it was forced either to make itself ill with 
sickly sweets, or was overdosed with dire stimulants, 
till after a flash of burning wasteful life, it died. 
One professor of long ago, writing in dialogue, con¬ 
ducts a horrified neophyte round his compost-yard, 
where the young beginner is completely upset by 
an inspection of horrible effects from the slaughter¬ 
house, sugar-refinery, and other sources of refuse. 
‘ Our compost ,’ says the master, over a vile com¬ 
pound, ‘is now in fine killing order; it would poison 
an oak-tree ! ’ No ; cut for your plants a few sods 
from a pasture which the buttercups will tell you is 
sound and rich. Ramble in the woods, and instead 
of a cornucopia of wild-flowers, bring back what 
you can carry of mellow leaf-mould ; ask the gar¬ 
dener for a slice of the hot-beds that grew last year’s 
melons or cucumbers; make about equal parts of 
all you have, with, say, charcoal to keep it open, and 
you have all the Auriculas will care to ask for. As 
for the rest, keep their feet warm— i.e., their roots 
well drained : their clothes dry in winter —i.e., the 
leaves from wet. Remember that while the plant 
itself is hardy beyond limit, yet its refined 
blossoms are inexpressibly tender ; that it belongs 
to the pretty family that loves a partial shade. 
Think how the bare trees and hedges let in all the 
winter sun upon the sleeping Primroses; how the 
young leaves on the boughs temper the sunshine 
over them in spring; the full leafage hides them 
from it all the summer. 
“ And if you wish to grow seedlings—which you 
should—be as much like Nature to them as you 
can; sow them when she does, as soon as ripe ; 
cover them as she does, which will be not at all, 
except by something that may represent the agen¬ 
cies of shade and moisture under which the young 
seeds grow, say, a piece of glass over their cradle- 
pot ; and when they bloom they will be a great 
reward. 
“ Here I draw T to its close my story of a florist 
flower. I have wished to show you what a store of 
interest it has for the true florist. He may be a 
toiling man, pent up in a dirty, ugly town, but here 
is a flower that will smile to him in that captivity, 
and look a contentment that imparts itself— 
thriving as though the smoke-drifts were but natural 
clouds, and the dry, hard shadows fell from waving 
