the large Cape varieties, in all of which, judging from such plates as have
been accessible to me, the crests or fringes of the lower petal are less
conspicuous than in the smaller species; and the flower almost takes the
aspect of a broom-blossom or pease-blossom. In the smaller European
varieties, the white fringes of the lower petal are the most important and
characteristic part of the flower, and they are, among European wild
flowers, absolutely without any likeness of associated structure. The
fringes or crests which, towards the origin of petals, so often give a
frosted or gemmed appearance to the centres of flowers, are here thrown to
the extremity of the petal, and suggest an almost coralline structure of
blossom, which in no other instance whatever has been imitated, still less
carried out into its conceivable varieties of form. How many such varieties
might have been produced if these fringes of the Giulietta, or those
already alluded to of Lucia nivea, had been repeated and enlarged; as the
type, once adopted for complex bloom in the thistle-head, is multiplied in
the innumerable gradations of thistle, teasel, hawkweed, and aster! We
might have had flowers edged with lace finer than was ever woven by mortal
fingers, or tasselled and braided with fretwork of silver, never
tarnished--or hoarfrost that grew brighter in the sun. But it was not to
be, and after a few hints of what might be done in this kind, the Fate, or
Folly, or, on recent theories, the extreme fitness--and consequent
survival, of the Thistles and Dandelions, entirely drives the fringed
Lucias and blue-flushing milkworts out of common human neighbourhood, to
live recluse lives with the memories of the abbots of Cluny, and pastors of
Piedmont.

12. I have called the Giulietta 'blue-_flushing_' because it is one of the
group of exquisite flowers which at the time of their own blossoming,
breathe their colour into the surrounding leaves and supporting stem. Very
notably the Grape hyacinth and Jura hyacinth, and some of the Vestals,