I54 FLORIDA DAYS.

strikes a gorgeous blossom, a flake of palpitating
fire, or a golden disk, which seems as much out
of place here in the gloom, among the lilies
and the sober violets, as a cavalier among the
Quakers. It is necessity, perhaps, rather tban
history, which declares some such flowers for-
eigners. There is a proud consciousness about
them, a hint of the beautiful and wicked world; a
flavor of the court, in fact. One scarcely needs
the tradition of De Soto and his seeds. If it
had not been De Soto, it must have been same
one else. Captain Romans, perhaps.; although,
indeed, his mind was upon more practical seeds
than posies for the women's gardens, which were
to break away into the forest, or wander alqng
the roadside, dreaming in the dank, hot shadows
or rioting in the sun. For among the artificial
produce" which Romans suggests should be in-
troduced into this new land, one only finds such
names as ginger, rye, and tea.
 Captain Romans, by the way, is so good as
to warn his reader that, "no elegance of ftrle
nor flowers of rhetoric must be expe6ed from a
perfon who is confcious that he is not sufficiently






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