WHERE FLOWERS CAME FROM.

Kumara Times, Issue 460, 18 March 1878, Page 2

WHERE FLOWERS CAME FROM.

Some of our flowers came from lands of perpetual summer, some from countries all ice and snow, some from islands in the ocean. Thi'ee of our sweetest exotics came originally from Peru ; the camelia was carried to England in 1739, and a few years afterwards the heliotrope and raigonette. Several others came from the Cape of Good Hope; a very large calla was found in the ditches there, and some of the moat brilliant geraniums, or pelargoniums, which are a spurious geranium The verbena grows wild in Brazil; the marigold is an African flower, and a great number from China and Japan. The little Daphne was carried to England by Captain Ross from almost the farthest land he visited towards the North Pole. Some of these are quite changed in form by cultivation ; others have only become larger and brighter; while others, despite of all the care of florists and the shelter of hot houses, fall far short of the beauty and fragrance of the tropics. Among improved ones is the daialh . When brought to Europe it was a very simple blossom, a single circle of dark petals surrounding a mass of yellow ones. Others with scarlet and orange petals, were soon after transplanted from Mexico, but still remained simple flowers Long years of cultivation in rich soil, with other arts of skilful florists, have changed it to what it now is—a round ball of beauty.