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A similar process may be seen on dissecting a tulip-root in winter; the leaves, which inclosed the last year's flower-stalk, were not necessary for the flower; but each of these was the father of a new bud, which may be now found at its base; and which, as it adheres to the parent, required no mother.
Circling the flower-stalk, in rosette fashion, are a dozen or more round leaves, each of them wearing scores of glands, very like little pins, a drop of gum glistening on each and every pin by way of head. This appetizing gum is no other than a fatal stick-fast, the raying pins closing in its aid the more certainly to secure a hapless prisoner.
The rocambole is merely the bulbs on the top of the flower-stalk of the garlic, it being a viviparous plant. The flavour of this being somewhat different, is used in the kitchen under the above name. SAGE. Salvia officinalis. Of this we have two varieties, green and red. The latter is considered the best for culinary purposes: it is the well-known sauce for geese and other water-fowl.
"Oh, I carried her up!" "In your arms?" "Y-e-e-s." Miss Euphemia paused, and bit off the stalk of a flower, made a wry face, and threw it away from her in disgust. Then she dug a few tiny holes in the earth with her parasol, and buried bits of the flower-stalk in them, as if they had been tender memories. "I suppose you knew Mornie very well?" she asked.
This plant grows, with a simple tap root, in the deep soft mud, bearing one large peltate leaf on a leaf stalk, about eight feet high, and from twelve to eighteen inches in diameter, the flower-stalk being of the same length or even longer, crowned with a pink flower resembling that of a Nymphaea, but much larger: its seed-vessel is a large cone, with perpendicular holes in its cellular tissue, containing seeds, about three quarters of an inch in length.
Indeed, the variety that prevails among fruits in this respect almost defies classification: for sometimes, as in the mulberry, the separate little fruits of several distinct flowers grow together at last into a common berry: sometimes, as in a fig, the general flower-stalk of several tiny one-seeded blossoms forms the edible part: and sometimes, as in the strawberry, the true little nuts or fruits appear as mere specks or dots on the bloated surface of the swollen and overgrown stem, which forms the luscious morsel dear to the human palate.
When the flower-stalk is once prostrated it is a difficult matter to get it back in place without breaking it. If netting is used it need not be placed over the bed before the middle of July. By that time most of the weeds which require attention during the early part of the season will have been disposed of.
But every grass-blade and flower-stalk is a mausoleum of vanished summer, itself crumbling to dust, never to rise again. Each child of June, scarce distinguishable in November against the background of moss and rocks and bushes, is brought into final prominence in December by the white snow which imbeds it.
It is frankly offensive in its character, and its young juices deadly as any hellebore that ever grew. Like most mountain herbs, it has an uncanny haste to bloom. One hears by night, when all the wood is still, the crepitatious rustle of the unfolding leaves and the pushing flower-stalk within, that has open blossoms before it has fairly uncramped from the sheath.
No garden that "lives up to its privileges" will be without it. It does best in a shady place. Almost any soil seems to suit it. It is very hardy. It spreads rapidly, sending up a flower-stalk from every "pip." When the ground becomes completely matted with it, it is well to go over the bed and cut out portions here and there.
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