These two plants, if they receive even
ordinary good treatment, may also be relied upon for masses of uniform
bloom held well above the leaves; and while pure white peonies are a
trifle monotonous and glaring unless blended with the blush, rose,
salmon, and cream tints, there are any number of white iris both tall
and dwarf with either self-toned flowers, or pencilled, feathered, or
bordered with a variety of delicate tints, and others equally valuable
of pale shades of lilac or yellow, the recurved falls being of a
different tint.
Thus does Nature paint her pictures and give us hints to follow, and yet
a certain art phase proclaims Nature's colour combinations crude and
rudimentary forsooth!
[Illustration: AN IRIS HEDGE.]
Nature is never crude except through an unsuccessful human attempt to
reproduce the uncopyable. Give one of these critics all the colour
combinations of the evening sky and let him manipulate them with wires
and what a scorched omelet he would make of the most simple and natural
sunset!
While Nature does not locate the different colours on the palette to
please the eye of man, but to carry out the various steps in the great
plan of perpetuation, yet on that score it is all done with a sense of
colour value, else why are the blossoms of deep woods, as well as the
night-blooming flowers that must lure the moth and insect seekers
through the gloom, white or light-coloured?
In speaking of white or pale flowers there is one low shrub with
evergreen leaves and bluish-white flowers that I saw blooming in masses
for the first time not far from Boston in early May.
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