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It wriggles up and along a ridge, with the glaucous spathes of grass trees standing like spears on each hand, and where wattle and tough she-oaks grow leanly out of hard soil, thickly strewn with buckshot gravel, rust-coloured. Soon it descends into a low valley and through a belt of fan-palms and jungle bordering an ever-flowering stream the banks of which are knee-deep in fat, rich loam.

And in the hall they talked of the great musician and the great king, or John played the beautiful hymns of the Russian Church, in whose pathetic charm he declared Chopin had found his inspiration; they spoke of the Grail and the Romance of the Swan, or, wandering into the library, they read aloud the ever-flowering eloquence of De Quincey, the marmoreal loveliness of Landor, the nurselike tenderness of Tennyson.

But the same thing occurs also with positive varieties, though of course, such cases are very rare. The best known instance is that of the ever-flowering begonia, Begonia semperflorens, which has green leaves and white flowers, but which has produced garden varieties with a brown foliage and pink flowers. Here also the new quality manifests itself in different organs.

The Ever-flowering China Rose. China, 1789. A somewhat spreading bush, with slender branches, armed with curved prickles. Leaves composed of three or five leaflets, and tinted with purple. Flowers almost scentless, solitary, semi-double, and of a bright and showy crimson. The Austrian Brier, or Yellow Eglantine. South Europe, 1596.