Perhaps the supreme flower of the day is the gladiolus.
Even cottagers are giving high prices for the bulbs, and the extension of colour and form still proceeds apace with the help of that strange primulinus variety which was found by an English traveller flourishing under the spray of the Zambesi Falls. The curiosity of it lay in that specially developed ad hoc petal, which held a protective umbrella over the anthers ; but its gift to the species is not this most Darwinian adaptation to a peculiar environment, but in the opportunity for new colours. They are still appearing each year and likely to appear. Many people who first bought bulbs lost them after a single season ; but now the least careful gardeners have learnt that it is suicidal to leave the bulbs in the ground throughout the winter and the bulb is as hard to kill as any other.
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