11. Some essential points respecting the flower I shall note, however, before ending. There is one large and frequent species of it of which the flowers are delicately yellow, touched with tawny red, forming one of the chief elements of wild foreground vegetation in the healthy districts of hard Alpine limestone.[[26]] This is, I believe,
the only European type of the large Cape varieties, in all of which, judging from such plates as have been accessible to me, the crests or fringes of the lower petal are less conspicuous than in the smaller species; and the flower almost takes the aspect of a broom-blossom or pease-blossom. In the smaller European varieties, the white fringes of the lower petal are the most important and characteristic part of the flower, and they are, among European wild flowers, absolutely without any likeness of associated structure. The fringes or crests which, towards the origin of petals, so often give a frosted or gemmed appearance to the centres of flowers, are here thrown to the extremity of the petal, and suggest an almost coralline structure of blossom, which in no other instance whatever has been imitated, still less carried out into its conceivable varieties of form. How many such varieties might have 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. Bracteolata, C. 345. Oppositifolia, C. 492. Speciosa, C. 1790. These three all purple, and scarcely distinguishable from sweet pease-blossom, only smaller.
Stipulacea, C. 1715. Small, and very beautiful, lilac and purple, with a leaf and mode of growth like rosemary. The "Foxtail" milkwort, whose name I don't accept, C. 1006, is intermediate between this and the next species.
15. Mixta, C. 1714. I don't see what mingling is meant, except that it is just like Erica tetralix in the leaf, only, apparently, having little four-petalled pinks for blossoms. This appearance is thus botanically explained. I do not myself understand the description, but copy it, thinking it may be of use to somebody. "The apex of the carina is expanded into a two-lobed plain petal, the lobes of which are emarginate. This appendix
is of a bright rose colour, and forms the principal part of the flower." The describer relaxes, or relapses, into common language so far as to add that 'this appendix' "dispersed among the green foliage in every part of the shrub, gives it a pretty lively appearance."