Moulting mops dipped in stale lobster sauce

[lblanchard]

Yesterday I was going through the Gardener's Chronicle (published from the 1840s to the 1960s) online. The Biodiversity Heritage Library has all the issues with Reginald Farrer's dispatches from his last trip, plus his obituary and several other tributes. I downloaded pages and assembled into one huge illegible pdf. I am now keyboarding it, one dispatch at a time, so that I can finally settle down and read it.

But while I was going through it I found three pictures of chrysanthemums that perfectly fit Farrer's description of show chrysanthemums as "moulting mops dipped in stale lobster sauce." I've posted them on the Elsenets, but here they are again.







There are other wonders to be found in the Gardener's Chronicle. Here's a link to the online version if you want to rummage.
http://biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/48390#/summary

Comments

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

That "moulting mops dipped in lobster sauce" is one of the most descriptive phrases I've ever read.
The pictures you found are indeed just that!

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Ha! Farrer's got bushelsful of descriptive phrases, many of them alliterative.