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CHAP. 13.—HOW SEED IS STAINED TO PRODUCE TINTED FLOWERS.

There has been invented1 also a method of tinting the lily, thanks to the taste of mankind for monstrous productions. The dried stalks2 of the lily are tied together in the month of July, and hung up in the smoke: then, in the following March, when the small knots3 are beginning to disclose themselves, the stalks are left to steep in the lees of black or Greek wine, in order that they may contract its colour, and are then planted out in small trenches, some semi-sextarii of wine-lees being poured around them. By this method purple lilies are obtained, it being a very remarkable thing that we should be able to dye a plant to such a degree as to make it produce a coloured flower.

1 Fée remarks, that the extravagant proceeding here described by Pliny with a seriousness that is perfectly ridiculous, does not merit any discussion.

2 When detached from the bulb, the stem of the lily will infallibly die.

3 "Nudantibus se nodulis." There are no such knots in the lily, as Fée remarks.

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