Garden Escapes
One correspondent is, and perhaps justifiably, very sceptical. " My own impression is that the plant is mostly, if not always an escape from cultivation in this country." He is probably right, but if he is right how does it happen that this delicate, shy-blooming thing should not only have escaped but survived ? If it was once cultivated more widely and flowered more prolifically how does it happen that such an authority as Sowerby, for instance, does not mention it ? This tulip, like some other species, seems to increase by means of offsets, often without flowering at all. Its survival as a wild plant brings up the very interesting question of other garden escapes. Why do some plants escape and persist in surviving, and not others ? If Tulipa Sylvestris and montbretia and canterbury-bell and even- ing-primrose and pink primrose can escape and re-establish themselves as wild plants, how is it that it never seems to happen to such prolific garden seeders as poppy and marigold, Cali- fornian poppy and mullein ? Plants that might seem to have a reasonable chance of successful escape, for instance,. are hybrid anemones, frothing seed as light as thistledown ; or the Peruvian lilies, cracking off with high explosions like amber bombs on the hot afternoons of July. Anthemis should have a chance of escape, and michaelmas daisy. Yet these lusty plants fail where the delicate tulip has, apparently, succeeded for at least a hundred and fifty years.
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