What was it at first?
What is it now in the rural gardens of New England?
A shallow, bell-mouthed cup, in most cases purely white, and hung to a tall, coarse stalk, like the yellow jets of a mullein.

That is its natural and distinctive characteristic in all countries; at least where it is best known and most common.

What is it here, bearing the fingerprints of man's mind and taste upon it?
Its white and thin-sided cup is brim full and running over with flowery exuberance of leaf and tint infinitely variegated.

Here it is as solid, as globe-faced, and nearly as large as the dahlia.

Place it side by side with the old, single- leafed hollyhock, in a New England farmer's garden, and his wife would not be able to trace any family relationship between them, even through the spectacles with which she reads the Bible.