shyly proclaims its flowering by a scent as intangible and fleeting as a
phantom.

"The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense." Not so in
respect of the organ of smell. The more educated, the more practised nose
detects the subtler odour and is the more offended by grossness. And upon
what flower has been bestowed the most captivating of perfumes? Not the
rose, or the violet, or the hyacinth, or any of the lilies or stephanotis
or boronia. The land of forbidding smells produces it; it is known to
Europeans as the Chinese magnolia. Quaint and as if carved skilfully in
ivory, after the manner of, the inhabitants of its countrymen, the petals
tumble apart at the touch, while fragrance issues not in whiffs but in
sallies, saturating the atmosphere with the bouquet of rare old port
commingled with the aroma of ripe pears and the scent of musk roses.

Some of the flowering plants of old England here dwell contentedly,
leafage being free, however few and dwarfed in some cases the bloom.
Roses, violets, honeysuckle, pansies, cosmos, phlox, balsams, sunflowers,
zinnias, blue Michaelmas daisies, dianthus, nasturtiums, &c., are on
common ground with purely tropical plants, while ageratum has become a
pestiferous weed.

An early or late arrival among flowers and fruit cannot be hailed or
chidden where there is but trifling seasonable variation. Without
beginning and without end, the perpetual motion of tropical vegetation is
but slightly influenced by the weather. Who is to say that this plant is
early or that late, when early or late, like Kipling's east and west,
are one? It is not that all flowering trees and plants are of continuous
growth. Many do have their appointed seasons, producing flowers and fruit
according to date and in orderly progress, leaving to other species the