Might nothing meet the wistful eye,
Than crimson fading into gold
In streaks of fairest symmetry.
This sounds like the old original Duc van Tholl, which is almost ugly enough to deserve such a fate; at least in some people’s opinion, although an old grower, once contemplating it in admiration, exclaimed, “It is a grand flower—grand! But the English amateurs now have no taste. They no longer know what a tulip should be! This, this I tell you, this is a Tulip!”
One other quotation, this from Montgomery, admired of our grandmothers. He would seem to have been planting a tulip bulb, evidently one of the streaked florist’s variety, and the thought of the flower to come moved him to utterance worthy of the “Elegant Album”:—
Two shapely leaves will first unfold;
Then, on a smooth, elastic stem,
The verdant bud shall turn to gold,
And open in a diadem.
Not one of Flora’s brilliant race