Page:The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated.djvu/364

230 Double flowers are showy, and all very well as varieties; but when the original is single, it should never be so entirely lost sight of, as is now generally the case. I always marvel how any one can prefer seeing the cup-like corolla of the Snowdrop or Daffodil, crammed with a multitude of petals crushed and squeezed out of all form and beauty, with the central arrangement of the flower, the stamens, anther, &c., wholly hidden from sight.

The elegant, veined flowers of the Hibiscus are among our Autumn darlings; and the China-asters look cheerfully out from their many-leaved calyces. The Sweet Peas still adorn the trellis with their winged blossoms, and the gay Golden-rod bears aloft its rich yellow crown. The pink and lilac Michaelmas Daisies, though favourite guests, are sad ones, from the presage they bring of the departure of all their fair companion-flowers. But a mere enumeration of these garden inmates, has little interest—we will proceed to look more closely at the subject of the Autumn illustrations.

So says our Shakspeare's lovely Perdita, when, "playing as she had seen them do in Whitsun pastorals," she distributes her token flowers to Polixenes and Camillo: and