Page:Forbes Watson - Flowers and Gardens.djvu/39

 each other by mere differences of light and shade.

We now pass on to the flower of the Snowdrop. This, as every one knows, droops from the end of a slender stalk, which arises at the top of the stem from a sheath-like bract or spathe. Now look at that slender stalk, and notice particularly the character of the bend it makes. This is not, as it is sometimes represented in drawings, a gradual, arching curve. The stalk would then look weak, as if bent by the weight of the flower, and such a condition can never naturally be found, except in a sickly Snowdrop, or else in double blossoms, where it is extremely common. And notice, if you have met with any such specimen, how completely all its beauty is destroyed. In a healthy Snowdrop this stalk is for the most part nearly straight, bending slightly, and only slightly, to the weight of the flower. Slender though it be, it seems to assert its own freedom and perfect ability to stand as upright as it pleases. But just at the end it makes a sudden