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,
empurpling all their green leaves even to the ground: a quite distinct
nature in the flower, observe, this possession of a power to kindle the
leaf and stem with its own passion, from that of the heaths, roses, or
lilies, where the determined bracts or calicos assert themselves in
opposition to the blossom, as little pine-leaves, or mosses, or brown paper
packages, and the like.

13. The Giulietta, however, is again entirely separate from the other
leaf-flushing blossoms, in that, after the two green leaves next the flower
have glowed with its blue, while it lived, they do not fade or waste with
it, but return to their own former green simplicity, and close over it to
protect the seed. I only know this to be the case with the Giulietta
Regina; but suppose it to be (with variety of course in the colours) a
condition in other species,--though of course nothing is ever said of it in
the botanical accounts of them. I gather, however, from Curtis's careful
drawings that the prevailing colour of the Cape species is purple, thus
justifying still further my placing them among the Cytherides; and I am
content to take the descriptive epithets at present given them, for the
following five of this southern group, hoping that they may be explained
for me afterwards by helpful friends.

14. Bracteola