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Erythrina Crista-galli was introduced about 1770, and produced its first sport in 1884, after more than a century of cultivation. Begonia semperflorens has been cultivated since 1829, and for half a century before it commenced sporting. The same length of time has elapsed between the first culture and the first variation of Crambe maritima.
There were vivid parterres of flowers, begonia and geranium. There were oleanders, with their heady southern perfume; there were pomegranate-blossoms, like knots of scarlet crepe; there were white carnations, sweet-peas, heliotrope, mignonette; there were endless roses. And there were birds, birds, birds. Everywhere you heard their joyous piping, the busy flutter of their wings.
He did not reply, but he stooped down, plucked a blood-red begonia, and gave it to her. 'That is a pledge. It is very good of you. She tried to fasten it in her gown, underneath the locket, but she dropped a little black pin. He went down on his knees to find it; rose, and put the flower in its proper place himself, and his head nearly touched her neck, quite unnecessarily.
The weather had been perfectly fine for some days, and no ordinary boots would have left such a heavy deposit. "I strolled to the window, and saw at once that the begonia beds had been newly planted. The mould in the beds was exactly similar to that on the floor of the boudoir, and also I learnt from you that they had been planted yesterday afternoon.
"This," they exclaimed, with one consent, "is not writing verses on the begonia for no purpose! We must really start a Begonia Society!" "To-morrow," Shih Hsiang-yuen proposed, "first fine me by making me stand a treat, and letting me be the first to convene a meeting; may I?" "This would be far better!" they all assented.
The culminant rocks are very dry, but in the rains may possess many curious plants; a fine Kalanchoe was common, with the berberry, a beautiful Indigofera, and various other shrubs; a Bolbophyllum grew on the rocks, with a small Begonia, and some ferns. There were no birds, and very few insects, a beautiful small Pontia being the only butterfly.
This may be seen in distinct strains of the cultivated bulbous Begonia, and more rarely in primroses. Here the apex of the carpellary leaf is sometimes drawn out into a long style, terminated by a flattened spatulate stigma. The pistillody of the stamens is frequently combined with another deviation in the poppies.
Our tuberous begonias owe their variability to at least seven original parent species, and to the almost incredible number of combinations which are possible between their characters. The first of these crosses was made in the nursery of Veitch and Sons near London by Seden, and the first hybrid is accordingly known as Begonia sedeni and is still to be met with.
Those who have only once been driven round together with the crew of sight-seers can carry little away but the memory of lapis-lazuli and bronze-work, inlaid agates and labyrinthine sculpture, cloisters tenantless in silence, fair painted faces smiling from dark corners on the senseless crowd, trim gardens with rows of pink primroses in spring and of begonia in autumn, blooming beneath colonnades of glowing terra-cotta.
Nearly the whole extent of this natural wall is covered with plants, among which you can easily discern numbers of ferns and mosses, two species of Pitcairnia with beautiful red flowers, some Aroids, various nettles, and here and there a Begonia. How different such a spot would look in cold Europe!
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