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B&IGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY

PROVG, UTAH

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GARDEN FLOWERS

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THE YEAE.

1 For wonderful indeed are all His -works,
Pleasant to know, and worthiest to be all
Had in remembrance always with delight."

LONDON:
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY

Instituted 1799,

n E

«'GHAM YOLFIV

:: ! * R - a t

^ovor^^srrv

PEEFACE.

The Author of the following pages, in treating
of the Garden Flowers, has acted on the same
principle as that adopted in the volume on
Wild Flowers, which preceded it. In selecting
a few from the thousands of flowers which
have been introduced into Britain, those are
chosen which are most commonly seen in the
garden, rather than those which are of more
choice culture. No instructions have been
added as to the mode of rearing them, as many
inexpensive and valuable treatises are already
before the public, which are well calculated to
aid the amateur gardener in his pursuit. A
few simple things respecting cultivated flowers,
somewhat of their history, their uses, and
their relations to scriptural allusions, are here
stated.

A 2

IV PREFACE.

The writer ; has also sought, as occasion
presented itself, to point the reader to the
connexion existing between the kingdom of
nature and the kingdom of heaven : since
our knowledge would be but of little worth,
though we could name every herb of the field,
or rear every flower of the garden, or classify
each tree of the forest, if we were ignorant ot
the living " Plant of Kenown."

CONTENTS.

Page
JANUARY.

Rosemary — Old uses of this plant — Snowdrop— Snow-
flake— Cyclamen — Candy tuft — Early flowering Cress —
Scented Colt's-foot— Winter Aconite .... 7

FEBRUARY.

Crocus — Mezereon — Pontic Daphne — Lace bark tree — Hep-
atica — Lilac Primrose — Japan Quince — Vernal Bulbo-
codium— Corydalis 12

MARCH.
Almond Tree — Coronilla— Garden Daffodils— Polyanthus —
Anemone — Star ot Bethlehem — Dog's Tooth Violet —
Wallflower — Flowers on Carmel Tulip — Crown Imperial—
Penstemon — Periwinkle — Violets— Clandestine Violet —
Pansy — Iris— Bulbous Plants — Cardamine . . .19

APRIL.

Flowers of Fruit Trees — Apple— Ornamental Pear and
Cherry — Perfumed Cherry — Hyacinth — Garden of Hya-
cinths—Grape Hyacinth— Feathered Hyacinth — Garden
Daisies — Pyramidal Saxifrage — Round-leaved Saxifrage —
Double Furze— Onosma— Dragon Flower — Dumb Cane —
Horn Flower— Spiraea — Bridewort — Italian May — Bladder
Nut — Auricula — Greek Valerian — Flowering Currant —
Snowy-flowered Gooseberry— Berberry— Clustered Ber-
berry— Venus's Looking Glass — Mesembryanthemum —
Ice Plants— Lilac— Persian Lilac 37

MAY.
Laburnum — Red Valerian — Ancient Spikenard— Lobelia —
Cardinal Flower — White Lobelia — Spider Wort — Bugloss —
Pelargonium — Myrtle — Heliotrope — Marigold — Rainy
Marigold — Mullcius — Mallow of Scripture — Mallow
Paper — Mallow used as food by Ancients — Lavatera —
Heaths — Andromeda— Climbing Cobaea— Tiger Flower —
Box Edgings — Box Shrub of Scripture— GEnothera —
Evening Primrose — Various species of Clematis — Japan
Corchorus — Bachelor's Button— Rue-leaved Ranunculus
— Asphodel — Regard of Ancients for the Asphodel-
Honesty — Perennial Adonis— Columbines — Paeony — Tree
Paeony — Rhubarb — Honeysuckle — Trumpet Honey-
suckle — Rhododendron — Garlic — Garlic prized by the
Ancients — Syringa — Persicaria — Monkshood — Aconites —
Rose Acacia — Locust Tree — True Acacia — Charles's
Sceptre— Escholtzia , ♦ 63

Vi CONTENTS.

Page
JUNE.

Rose of Scripture— Provence Rose — Musk Rose — French
Rose — Damask Rose — China Rose — Bourbon Rose —
Scarlet Lychnis — Catchfly — Fraxinella — Fuchsia — French
Honeysuckle — Carnation Poppies— Minor Convolvulus —
Major Convolvulus — Fitches of Scripture — Nasturtium —
Canary Bird Flower — Calceolaria — Verbena — Lemon-
scented Verbena — Lupin — Ancient uses of Lupin seed —
Tree Lupin— Scented Scabions — Lily — Lily of Scripture —
Martagon Lily — Lily of Australia — Stock — Campanula —
Dane's Blood — Sweet Pea — Tangier Pea — White Jessa-
mine — Yellow Jessamine — Jessamine of Mauritius —
Night-flowering Jessamine — Monkey Flowers — Hop Mar-
joram— Larkspurs — Gum Cistus — Blue Pimpernel— Flow-
ering Raspberry — Potentilla— Spanish Broom— Esparto of
Spaniards — Petunia — Prickly Poppy— Foxglove— Madeira
Foxglove 105

JULY.

Lavender — Phlox — Day Lily— Hibiscus — Various uses of
Hibiscus — Bladder Ketmia, — Gladiolus — Bladder Senna —
Commelina — Sweet Basil — Hollyock — French Willow —
Nemophila — Carnation — Pink — Tree Pink — Groundsel —
Coreopsis — Salvia — Clary — Blessed Thistle — Purple and
Yellow Sultans — Yucca — Zinnia — African Marigold —
French Marigold— Globe— Balsam— Hop Grass— Ribbon
Grass— Feather Grass — Tobacco Flower . . . .136

AUGUST.
Dahlia — Sun-flower — Sun-flower of Peruvians — Hydrangea
— Blue Hydrangea — Everlasting flowers— Gnaphalium —
Helichrysum — Xeranthemum — Globe Amaranth —
Prince's Feather — Coxcomb — Strawberry Blite —
Rudbeckia — Milfoil— Golden rod 159

SEPTEMBER.
Oriental Arbutus — China Aster — Michaelmas Daisy —
Autumn flowering Gentians — Yellow Gentian— Autumnal
Crocus — Colchicum 171

OCTOBER.

Chrysanthemum— Feverfew — Cotoneaster — Mignonette-
Tree Mignonette 1 78

NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER.
M onthly Rose — Winter Cherry— Anemones — Christmas
Rose — Evergreens — Laurel — Portugal Laurel — Sweet
Pay— Rhododendron— Evergreen Thorn . . . # 185

JANUARY.

u Here spreads a range of level plots,
Of box-fringed beds, where lurking knots
Of buried flowers repose, to bring
Kind greeting to the early spring."— Bishop Mant.

Vegetation makes little progress now, for the
earth seems waiting for the breath of spring.
The seeds lie dormant till some access of heat
shall cause them to germinate, and the roots
abide underground, till the coming thaw shall
enable them to put forth their fibres, and to
send their young green shoots into the light of
the upper world.

Yet, even at this time of the year, the garden
is not absolutely forsaken of leaves and blos-
soms, for God has given us winter flowers, and,
like those cheering hopes of future joy, which
spring up in the heart at the bidding of our
heavenly Father, during the season of gloom,
they smile even on darkest days, and give
assurance of fulness and beauty, such as we
should deem impossible if we looked only on
the present appearances of earth and sky.
The buds gradually increase in number, and
grow larger on the branches of the trees. The
evergreens, with their many dark green leaves,
or with their lighter hue, like the laurel, re-
flect, on their shining surfaces, the noonday

8 GARDEN FLOWERS.

sunbeams, and the laurustinus and the rose-
mary bring their flowers to form the winter
nosegay.

There is a sweet fragrance in the rosemary.
So thought our forefathers when they used it
at table, and infused it in their ale. George
Herbert considered it a good addition to cook-
ery, for while he says that the country parson
should be well skilled in the knowledge of
plants, he recommends this and other herbs.
" As for spices," says he, " the parson doth not
only prefer this and other homebred things
before them, but condemns them for vanities,
and so shuts them out of his family, esteeming
that there is no spice comparable for herbs, to
rosemary, thyme, savory, and mint ; and for
seeds, to fennel and carraway seeds." The
troubadours, too, prized the winter fragrance
of the rosemary, and regarded both this flower
and the violet as emblems of constancy. In
many parts of Germany it is still grown in
large pots, that small sprigs of it may be sold
during winter and the commencement of spring,
as it is used there for some religious ceremo-
nies.

• From the cottage maiden, who wore a wreath
of this plant to the altar, to the royal bride of
the king, the rosemary was once the customary
ornament of the wedding ceremony ; and in
funerals it was often used. Its sprigs mingled in
the coronal which bound the hair of Anne of
Cleves, on the day when she became the wife
of the tyrannic Henry ; and it was intende4

January. 0

as an emblem of a happiness which she was
not destined to enjoy, with that inconstant
monarch.

The flowers of the rosemary {Rosmarinus
officinalis) are of a bluish lilac colour, and are
on the shrub from this month until April. The
plant has been from time immemorial common
in the English garden, and grows wild in the
south of Europe. It is found, too, on some
parts of the dry deserts of Africa. Dr. Shaw
saw the rosemary, and the dried stems of the
myrtle, used by the Moors in Barbary, for
heating ovens ; and was reminded of the words
of our Saviour respecting the flower of the
field, which " to-day is, and to-morrow is cast
into the oven."

If the weather be mild during January, the
snow-drop (Galanthus nivalis) droops its head
over the earth. The Italians call it snow-bell.
It is a wild flower in our land. The Russian
snow-drop ( Galanthus plicatus) is not found in
our native fields, but is common on the lands
of the Crimea. This species is smaller than
the English snow-drop, and continues in blos-
som later in the year.

One or two of the various species of snow-
flake, especially the spring kind, (Leucojum
vernum,) are also common now. They are
pretty bulbous- rooted plants, natives of various
parts of Europe, and abundant in Switzerland.
This flower was formerly known as St. Agnes1
flower.

With a blossom of a reddish purple colour,

A3

10 GARDEN FLOWERS.

the round-leaved cyclamen {Cyclamen Coum)
often salutes the opening year. The name of
this genus, taken from the Greek, and signify-
ing circular, is expressive either of the leaves,
or, more probably, of the numerous serpent-
like coils, into which the fruitstalks entwine
themselves. The bulbs of this and the other
species of cyclamen are as large as a Guinea-
fowl's-egg. They contain a great degree of
acridity. In the north of Italy swine feed upon
them, hence the name by which this plant is
often called of sow-bread. It is not till the
beautiful flowers of the cyclamen wither away,
that the stalks assume the coiled form before
alluded to ; when, screwing themselves round,
they inclose the rudiments of the fruit in the
centre, and lying down among the foliage, re-
main in that position till it comes to maturity.
This early cyclamen is very general in the
south of Europe.

The Persian cyclamen, (Cyclamen Persicum^
which blooms two months later, and is far less
hardy than this, is a native of the isle of
Cyprus, and was introduced into this country
rather more than a century since. One rarer
species, the ivy- leaved (Cyclamen hederafolium,)
has a most fragrant odour, and sometimes en-
livens the window among the white and lilac
primroses, which are cherished in flower- pots
at this season.

Large patches of the broad-leaved candy
tuft (Iberis semperflorens) are now on the gar-
den-plot, with clusters of pure white cross-

JANUARY. 11

shaped blossoms. Most of the species were
brought hither from Spain, and their Latin
name, from its old appellation of Iberia, re-
minds us of their origin. All the species are
common on the northern shores of the Mediter-
ranean. Some of the later blooming kinds are
abundant on the rocks of Gibraltar, and afford
a relief to the eye, wearied with gazing on their
barren surfaces. The early flowering cress
(Arabis albida) is not unlike these plants, and
blooms from this period till autumn. It is a
native of Caucasus.

Winter is not the season for odours, and few
breathe their sweetness in the frosty air;
but there is one plant in flower, which is so
powerfully fragrant as to fill a small garden
with its perfume. This is the scented colt'sfoot,
(Tussilago fragrans.) Its stem rises but a little
height from the ground, and it has many and
large leaves. If the growth be not restrained,
it sends out so many young suckers from its
root, that it will cover the garden and overrun
the more delicate flowers. The blossoms are
white, and their scent is like that of almonds.
It is very abundant on some lands of Italy,
and flowers in that lovely climate during the
winter months.

The brightest flower of the winter garden,
the very gem of January, till the crocus comes
to rival it, is the winter aconite, (Eranthis hy-
emalis.) Its glossy yellow cups, growing near
the earth, gave it its name, which, taken from
the Greek, imports earth-flower. Its leaves

12 GARDEN FLOWERS.

are much like those of the aconite or wolfsbane.
This flower belongs to the ranunculus tribe ; and,
like all plants of that order, it is very acrimo-
nious and also poisonous. A person known to the
writer, once thoughtlessly ate a small piece of
this pretty blossom, and experienced so violent
a burning sensation in his throat for some
hours afterwards, as to be seriously alarmed.
It is a frequent flower in the shady woods of
Italy, and is found in wooded spots very gene-
rally in the midland countries of Europe ;
while a species very similar, but which has
not yet found a place in our gardens, the Sibe-
rian eranthis, grows most plentifully in Siberia.
The old writers called it yellow wolfsbane,
and winter wolfsbane. Clare well describes
this flower —

" The winter aconite,
With buttercup-like flowers, that shut at night ;
Its green leaf furling round its cup of gold,
Like tender maiden muffled from the cold."

FEBRUARY.

'• A tale of spring around the distant haze
Seems muttering pleasures with the lengthened days ;
Morn wakens, mottled oft with May-day stains,
And shower-drops hang the grassy sprouting plains ;
Or on the naked thorn of brassy hue,
Drip glistening, like a summer stream of dew;
The woodman in his pathway, down the wood,
Crushes with hasty step full many a bud
Of early primrose ; yet if timely spied,
Sheltered some old half-rotten stump beside,
The sight will cheer his solitary hour,
And urge his feet to strive and save the flower."— Clare.

Notwithstanding the usually dreary aspect of
this month, yet still there are days on which

FEBRUARY. 13

nature seems to tell a tale of spring. And
cheering it is, at such brief intervals to wel-
come its approach, and to persuade ourselves
that snow and rain and frost have left us, and
that the early flowers will soon cluster about
us. But again the clouds return after the
rain ; the white fleeces from heaven descend,
as God " sendeth forth his snow like morsels,"
and we find we have yet to wait longer before
the leaves shall cover the boughs, and the
herbs, with all their myriads of blossoms,
shall silently praise the hand of Him who
made them.

But by the end of the month the snows are
generally disappearing, and then we see how,
under their covering, the young leaves and
buds have found a shelter from the frosts.
Many a green thing has been thriving beneath
the snow. In the northern countries of Europe,
the grass not only lives, but daily grows under
it ; and the Norway peasant, who longs that
the verdant land shall yield him food for his
cattle, scatters the ashes over the white surface,
that the young blade may rise to the sunshine.
And mercifully has the great Creator thus
ordained it, for in those more rigorous climates
the snow seldom leaves the earth till the sun of
April has, in our warmer regions, smiled out
upon the fields, and made them gay with many
colours.

First and brightest of February flowers we
must hail the crocus, standing forth in its deep
bright raiment of " cloth of gold." Several

14 GARDEN FLOWERS.

species of yellow crocus bloom now, but the
kind especially termed the spring crocus
(Crocus vernus) which often opens in January,
has usually white flowers tinged with purple,
or is striped with purple and gold, or with a
delicate tinge of lilac, softening into pure white.
This flower, which is a native of Switzerland
and Italy, is called by the French le safran
printanier. The true saffron crocus, however,
blooms in autumn. The species which blooms
earliest in the spring, is the Scotch crocus,
(Crocus biflorus,) striped with white and pur-
ple. The beautiful kinds of feathered crocus,
are varieties altered more or less by cultiva-
tion, but all included under the names of party-
coloured crocus, (Crocus versicolor.) This
flower is a native of southern Europe, and very
abundant on the hills of Greece. Rich saw
both pink and yellow crocuses growing wild in
Koordistan, all over the roads. Gardeners
enumerate about a hundred kinds of the
crocus. It was introduced into England about
the time of Queen Elizabeth. Gerarde says
of it, " That pleasant plant that bringeth forth
yellow flowers, was sent unto me from Eobinus
of Paris."

Then the mezereon, (Daphne mezereum,)
though a shrub of our native woods, is rare
enough to be planted in our gardens, because
it flowers at this early season. The Pontic
Daphne, too, (Daphne Pontica,) with its dark
evergreen shining leaves, and its wreath of
green winter flowers, often finds a place there.

FEBRUARY. 15

It is a native of Asia Minor, and is supposed
to be one of the plants which, with the rhodo-
dendron, poisoned the honey of the bees, and
caused the death of the soldiers, in the famous
retreat of the " ten thousand" recorded by
Xenophon.

It is remarkable that the nectar of some
flowers should yield a honey poisonous to those
who eat it, but quite innoxious to the bees;
yet it is undoubtedly the case. Professor Lind-
ley observes of the rhododendron, kalmia, and
andromeda, that they have not only noxious
leaves and branches, but that their very honey
is poison, " as has been too fatally experienced
by those who have fed on the produce of the
hives of Trebizonde."

There are in our gardens two varieties of the
common mezereon, one with red, the other with
white flowers "; and the twin-flowered spurge
laurel, though a wild plant of Britain, is com-
monly cultivated. The sweet-scented mezereon
{Daphne odord) is a pretty shrub, but needs
the shelter of the greenhouse.

Several kinds of daphne are used in the
south of Europe to dye wool yellow ; from
other kinds cordage is made ; and a soft paper
is manufactured from the bark of a species
common in Nipal. The inner bark of one
kind, called the lace bark tree of Jamaica,
{Daphne lagetto) is so beautifully formed into
a network, that it is worn as lace. It has a
white shining surface, like silk, and when taken
carefully from the plant, the hand may be put

16 GARDEN FLOWERS.

into it as in a stocking. Sir Thomas Lynch,
who was governor of Jamaica in the time of
Charles i., presented that monarch with a
cravat made of this material. The shrub will
not grow in the English garden.

The highly-poisonous berries of the mezereon
are given in Sweden to kill wild animals. The
women of Tahtary rub them on their cheeks,
and by causing an irritation, produce the tem-
porary effect of rouge. Some writers think
that the scent of every species of daphne is
deleterious, and that if kept in rooms it will
cause head-ache and fainting.

The two varieties of hepatica are among the
prettiest flowers of the winter months. Some
are of a deep rose pink, others of a brilliant
blue colour ; and they bloom very brightly
among their ivy-shaped leaves. This plant
was once called noble liver-wort, and herb
Trinity. The colour of the buds is very deep,
but the outside tint of the petals of the blue
variety is a pale grey. " The hepatica," says
the author of the " Backwoods of Canada,"
" is the first flower of the Canadian spring ; it
gladdens us with its tints of azure, pink, and
white, as early as April, soon after the snows
have melted from the earth. The Canadians
call it snow-flower, from its coming so soon
after the snow disappears. We see its grey
ilowrers in the open clearings, and the deep
recesses of the forest : its leaves are also an
enduring ornament through the open months
of the year : you see them on every grassy

FEBRUARY. 17

mound and mossy root. The shades of blue
are very various and delicate, the white anthers
forming a lovely contrast with the blue petals."

The lilac double primroses are now very
ornamental, as are also the red, white, and
flesh-coloured varieties. All the primroses are
valued for their early bloom, but our own wild
sulphur-coloured kind is the prettiest of them
all, though it is seen to more advantage bloom-
ing in the wood among the withered leaves
than in the garden bed.

In some gardens the dark red flowers of the
species of gladiolus called Watson's corn-flag,
{Gladiolus Watsonins,) are already in bloom.
It is a native of the Cape of Good Hope. This
tribe of plants is obtained almost solely from
Southern Africa, and the large bulbous roots
are a common food of the Hottentots.

The brightly-blushing flowers of the Japan
quince (Cydonia Japonica) redden among the
dark leaves of the bush on which they grow.
This is a beautiful plant, with flowers of all
tints, from the faintest pink to a rich deep
scarlet colour. It is a favourite shrub of the
Japanese, who are remarkable, not only for
their general love of flowers, but for the atten-
tion which they have paid to the science of
botany. The traveller Siedbold, who spent
some time in this island, says that in no' country
out of Europe is botany so much regarded as
there and in China. He enumerates ten
Japanese books on the science, which have been
printed and illustrated by coloured plates.

18 GARDEN FLOWEKS.

A very pretty little spring flower is not un-
common even in this month. The bulbocodium
(Bulbocodium vernum) is like a small dark
purple crocus. It is a native of Spain. Two
or three species of the elegant corydalis bloom,
too, as early as February. They are very
similar to the fumitory. The bean-leaved
species (Co7*ydalis fabaced) has purple flowers,
and is a native of Germany ; and the solid-
rooted kind, with its pink flowers, grows wild
in British woods, but - its size is increased by
culture. The most common species is the
glaucous corydalis : it is a North American, an
annual, and may be sown so as to flower at
almost any season of the year.

The list of February flowers is short indeed.
A few more weeks and they will have increased
tenfold, yet we shall scarcely value them more
than we do these few and early blossoms, for
these come, with the voices of the robin and
the thrush, to whisper of brighter days in store
for the lover of nature. These come to remind
us that God's hand is yet working gradually,
even as it did when the earth was first robed
with verdure, and when each successive day
witnessed the fresh and luxuriant growth of
primeval vegetation.

MARCH. 19

MARCH.

"How many a thing that pretty is, delays
The wanderer's steps beneath the sun's soft rays.
Gay daffodils bend o'er the watery gleam,
Doubling their flickered image in the stream ;
The woody nook, where bells of brightest blue
Have clothed the ground with heaven's ethereal hue ;
The lane's high-sloping bank, where pale primrose,
With hundreds of its gentle kindred blows ;
And speckled daisies, that on upland bare,
Their round eyes opening, scatter gladness there :
Man looks on nature with a grateful smile,
And thinks of nature's bounteous Lord the while."

Joanna Baillie.

When the fruit-trees are covered with flowers,
when the peach on the wall puts forth its lilac
blossoms, and the apricot's faint blush, and the
dark red streaks on the apple-bloom, attract
our notice, then we feel fully that spring has
arrived. Not yet, however, can we mark these
blooms. The sun must have greater power,
and the winds be gentler, too, before these
tokens of spring shall revisit the garden.
Meantime the almond-tree becomes clad with
its rose-like flowers, and its sweet fragrance is
delightful in the open air. Like the blossoms
of many other of our fruit-trees, its scent is far
from innocent : a poison lurks, not only in the
juices and leaves of the plant, but even in its
odour ; and, as it is with many of the attract-
ive pleasures which open to the spring-time of
life, a snare lies hid in its dangerous beauty.

Could we at this season visit the land
" beloved for the fathers' sake," the beautiful
Palestine, we should find the almond-blossom
covering the trees in every part of the country,

20 GARDEN FLOWERS.

on both sides of the Jordan. Even as we see it
in onr spring garden, the mind involuntarily
adverts to the place and period when Aaron's
rod " brought forth buds, and bloomed blos-
soms, and yielded almonds;"* and when the
bowls used in the Holy Temple were made in
the shape of the almond ; or where Joseph's
brethren carried up into Egypt, as a present to
Pharaoh, its sweet-flavoured kernels.*)" The
early-coming flower is spoken of by their pro-
phets as emblematic of haste, or of the head of
age ; to the ancient Hebrew it told of things of
"which we take little cognizance ; yet still we
may listen to its silent voice of remembrance,
and be led by the almond-flower to thoughts of
God.

The common almond-tree (Amygdalus com-
munis) and the bitter almond, (Amygdalus
amara,) especially the former, are the species
chiefly cultivated in our gardens and shrub-
beries for the sake of their flowers. Their
fruits need a warmer climate to bring them to
maturity, but in France and Spain, as well as
in the Mediterranean isles, these shrubs are
planted for the kernels. We receive our sweet
almond of commerce chiefly from Malaga ; and
the bitter from Magadore. These two species
are so alike in their form and flowers, that they
are distinguished chiefly by the flavour of their
fruits ; but the bitter almond contains the
larger portion of hydrocyanic or prussic acid ;

* Numbers xvii. 8. t Gen. xliii. 11.

MARCH. 21

and a distilled water made from it is as injurious
as the laurel water.

The profuse flowering of the almond- tree
was formerly considered as indicative of an
abundant harvest. This is alluded to by
Virgil —

" Mark well the flowering almond in the wood ;
If odorous blooms the bearing branches load,
The glebe will answer to the sylvan reign,
Great heats will follow, and large crops of grain.
But if a wood of leaves o'ershade the tree,
Such, and so barren, will the harvest be ;
In vain the hind shall vex the threshing floor,
For empty straw and chaiF shall be thy store."

In Egypt a paste made of almonds is used,
through which to filter the water of the Nile,
when muddy, at the time of the annual flood,
and by this mode of filtration it is rendered
sweet and pleasant, even to those who, but for
some process of this kind, could not drink it.
At the Cape of Good Hope the wood of the
almond-tree is made into heels for shoes.

One or two pretty flowering shrubs, of the
genus coronilla, are daily putting forth more
blossoms. The nine- leaved species (Coronilla
valentina) is a great ornament of the green-
house, with its pretty yellow, butterfly-shaped
flowers; and, like the seven-leaved species,
(Coronilla glanca,) blooms both in winter and
summer, though it flowers most freely in this
and the following months. The latter plant
has bluish green leaves, and its flowers are
fragrant during day, though scentless at night.
The most frequent of our garden kinds is tho
scorpion senna, {Coronilla emerus,) which

22 GARDEN FLOWERS.

blooms in April, and is a native of most parts
of the continent. A dye is obtained from this
plant which is litle inferior to indigo. The
small tufted coronals of flowers gave to this
genus of plants the name of coronilla.

The daffodil is now nodding to the breeze,
and sending its strong scent on the air. The
old writers called it Lent lily, chalice flower,
and daffy-down-dilly. Our gardens have a
great variety of this flower, as the Tradescant's
daffodil, which is the handsomest kind ; the
nonsuch ; the yellow incomparable, and many
others. They are all in blossom during this
month ; some of them remain through April,
and they all grow wild in the fields of southern
Europe. Our old writers appear to have in-
cluded under the general name of daffodil, the
smaller jonquils, and indeed all the narcissus
tribe. Some of those which we call narcissus
are very pretty flowers of the early spring, but
the jonquils are most fragrant ; the latter were
sometimes called, in former times, by the name
of rush daffodil. The narcissus was much
esteemed by the ancients, and is still greatly
admired by the Asiatics, being found through-
out Syria, as far as India. The common name
of two of our species, Bazelman minor, and
major, is evidently of Eastern origin. The
polyanthus narcissus is much celebrated in the
east, as is also the poets' narcissus. The former
{Narcissus tazetta) derives its name from the
Italian tazza, a cup ; and is called in France
Le narcisse de Constantinople. Its scent is plea-

MARCH. 23

sant, and it is used in China in some religious
ceremonies, and its flowers are annually sent
to various parts of that kingdom, from Canton,
where it is cultivated for sale. The poets'
narcissus, called in France Janette des contois,
is a wild flower, too, in some parts of England.

M And some faint odours o'er the vernal dew
Shall tempt the wanderings of the earliest bee
Hither, with music sweet as poetry,
To woo the flower whose verge is wiry gold."

Thus Elliott describes the polyanthus, which,
with its red, or claret-coloured, or lilac blooms,
decks every cottage garden, and looks up, too,
from the choicest flower border. The poly-
anthus much resembles the auricula, and is
simply a variety of our common wild primrose.
Thomson speaks of it as

11 The polyanthus of unnumber'd dyes."

It differs from the primrose, not only in hue,
but in flowering in clusters, instead of having
each flower on a stalk. The leaves and roots
of this and other species of primrose are some-
times grated and used as snuff, or taken inter-
nally as a medicine.

The bright flowers of the garden anemonies
have a very gay and cheerful aspect, dazzling
the eye by their brilliant scarlet, or pleasing
it no less by their softer purple or lilac tints,
fading into white. These flowers have been
brought us from the east ; and some of the
fields of the Levant are, in early spring, quite
radiant with their varied and beautiful tints.
In the soft climate of Provence some most

24 GARDEN FLOWERS.

lovely anemonies are scattered thickly over the
lands. Our handsome garland, or poppy
anemone, (Anemone coronarid) is the parent of
the finest florists7 flower, and comes from the
hot and dry plains of Syria and Asia Minor.
The flower is white, with a red ring round its
centre. The star anemone {Anemone stellaia)
is purple ; and the kind called garden anemone
(Anemone hortensis) is purple, with a white
centre ; and all the numerous varieties which
we have in our gardens spring from one of
these three kinds. The anemone is another
flower much prized in the eastern bouquet.
D'Herbelot mentions a Persian work, a col-
lection of moral essays, which was called, in
the figurative language of that people, " The
Garden of Anemonies." In former days this
flower was believed to possess such magical
virtues, that the sages of old times recom-
mended every person to gather, in spring, the
earliest anemone he saw, and keep it as a pre-
servation from pestilence. For this purpose
it wTas carefully wrapped in scarlet, till spring
again brought the fresh anemone, to allure to
hope, and often to lead on to disappointment.
And \vTell is it for us that "our destiny in this
life is not thus placed in our own keeping ; for
man, blind man, should choose the evil some-
times when he sought the good ; and while he
carefully shielded himself from sickness and
every affliction, should perhaps put far from
him the very means of moral improvement,
the very trial which might be sent in mercy to

MARCH. 25

bear him from this world, and draw him to
God.

One or two of the many species of the star
of Bethlehem are already in flower, especially
that handsome kind called by gardeners the
great flowery star, (Ornithogalum Arabicuni)
which is a native of Egypt. The most frequent
garden flower of the genus is that termed com-
mon star of Bethlehem, (Ornithogalum umhella-
tum,) which flowers about a month later, and
is found, though rarely, in the English mea-
dow. It is called by the French, La Belle
donze heuves — Eleven o'clock Lady, as it opens
at that hour and closes at five. Its white
flowers grow but few in a cluster. A parti-
cular interest is attached to this plant, from its
having been considered by Linna3us, and
other writers, as the dove's dung of Scripture.
That the roots of this and other species are
cooked and eaten in many parts of the east,
there can be no doubt ; and this species is
common throughout Palestine, and in the
neighbourhood of Samaria. It is so generally
used for food, that it would naturally have
a high value in a time of scarcity, like that
described in Scripture, when a small quantity
was sold in Samaria for five pieces of silver.*
This flower grows wild in Caucasus, Taurus,
and Northern Africa ; and it is expressly
stated by Dioscorides, that its bulbs were
sometimes cooked with bread, and were also

* 2 Ki»gs Vi, 25.

26 GARDEN FLOWERS.

often eaten raw. They were, too, in former
ages, the common food of the peasantry of
Italy and Southern Europe. The French term
the Star of Bethlehem Epi de lait, (milky
blade.) The yellow kind is a pretty and com-
mon flower. One species of this plant, the
officinal squill, (Ornithogalum sqidlla,) is the
medicinal plant mentioned by the ancient
Greeks, and one of the very few named by
them which is used in modern times. It blooms
in April and May : it has white blossoms, and
is common in the Greek islands. Its root is of
a great size, and is said by Loudon to be often
as large as the human head, and shaped like a
pear. The leaves — often a foot long — continue
green all the winter, and die away in spring;
after which rises the tall stem with its pyramid
of white blossoms, that continue in flower two
or three months.

That pretty little favourite flower, the dog's-
tooth violet, is now opening in the garden
border. Unlike the violet in all but its early
appearance, it is a lovely little vernal bulb,
with petals of deep lilac, reddish stem, and
twin spotted leaves. The species now in flower
it the common kind, (Erythroniurn dens canis.)
Its drooping flowers are sometimes quite of a
deep purple, but sometimes vary to white ;
and a species with yellow flowers, (Erythroniurn
Americanurri) is found in our gardens a month
later. This latter flower requires skill and
management with us, but in its native forests
it is very luxuriant and beautiful. There its

MARCH. 27

pendant yellow blossom is described as u deli-
cately dashed with crimson spots within, and
marked with fine purple lines on the outer
part of the petal;" while a variety of this
species is of a pale crimson colour, without
any spots or lines; and a second is of a deep
glowing yellow, its anthers of a reddish orange
colour, and thickly strewed with fine powder.
These flowers grow freely in Canada, and cover
large tracts of land, mingling their faint odour
with that of the sweet wild roses which grow
there, and with the fragrance of the flower
called by the colonists the milk weed, which
has the delicious perfume of a stock, and
which, with a few other powerfully scented
blossoms, compensate, in some measure, for
the want of odours in the Canadian violets,
which grow in profusion in their forests.

The dark brown or yellow wallflower {Cliei-
ranthus cheiri) has been cultivated for many
centuries in our gardens, and furnished many
an allusion for the songs ' of the troubadours.
The Alpine wallflower is generally thought
handsomer than our common species, on ac-
count of its larger and more compact flowers,
but it must yield to the former in sweetness of
scent. This plant is a native of France and
Spain. The wallflower grows wild on the
old walls of many an eastern city, whose
proud palaces are crumbling to dust. Lamar-
tine marked its blossoms, too, on Carmel, whose
" excellency" still remains, for it retains its
beautiful vegetation to a greater degree than,

28 GARDEN FLQWERS.

perhaps, any other mountain in Syria. Grow-
ing wild upon its heights, may yet be seen the
bright blue hyacinth, the yellow jonquil, the
varied anemone, and the golden cup of the
poets7 narcissus ; while thyme and wallflower,
and a variety of odoriferous herbs, yield to
every pressure of the traveller's foot an exqui-
site perfume; and the luxuriant vine, trailing
its broad leaves over its slopes, contributes,
with the flowers and shrubs, to render it yet
worthy of its Hebrew name of Carmel, which
signifies, a country of vineyards and gardens.
Its laurels are ever green; its olive-trees ever
fruitful, from the rivulets which wander down
its heights; while on its very summits grow
the tall dark pines of the north, and the hardy
oak of our climates.

The wallflower is prized highly by Asiatics,
especially by the Persians. It will ever be a
favourite flower with us, for the fragrance
which it yields before the rose and other
summer flowers yet please us with their odours.
Its pungent leaves are very wholesome for cattle,
and on this account it is often planted in pas-
tures destined for their food. It bears the
smoke of cities better than some other flowers,
and is, therefore, frequently seen in the little
plot of ground which in the large towns is
devoted to the culture of flowers. The botanic
name — taken from the Greek — signifies hand-
flower, because it was gathered so often for
nosegays; and as we see it in the pent-up
garden, or the balcony which fronts the city

MARCH. 29

window, where smoke somewhat impairs its
lustre, we are reminded of Elliott's lines : — -

" But mourning better days, the widow here
Still tries to make her little garden bloom,
For she was country bom. No weeds appear
Where her poor pinks deplore their prison-tomb;
To them, alas, no second spring shall come !
And there in May the lilac gasps for breath ;
And mint and thyme seem fain their woes to speak,
Like saddest portraits painted after death ;
And spindling wallflowers in the choking reek
For lifer for life lift up their branches weak."

The magnificent tribe of tulips, so often the
pride of the cottage garden, will now be coming
forth, one after another, as the spring advances,
but it will not be until May that the florist can
exhibit them in all their varieties, and con-
gratulate himself on their perfect forms and
clear colours. One of the earliest blowing
species, is that which is now found in many
a cherished garden plot, and is called by
gardeners Van Thol. (Tulipa sucweolens.) Its
red and yellow streaked cup glows in the fields
of southern Europe.

The French formerly called this flower Tu-
lipan, which, as well as our own name, is derived
from the Persian Thoulyban, the word used
in Persia for the turban. The tulip was intro-
duced into England about the year 1557, and
was, for the next century, a source of consider-
able traffic in the Netherlands, as well as an ob-
ject of gambling. Growers of tulips, during the
Tulipomania, purchased the bulbs at enormous
prices, and most remarkable speculations were
carried on by merchants with the tulip-roots,

30 GARDEN FLOWERS.

The flower is still much cultivated in Holland,
from which country all the rest of Europe are
supplied with bulbs. The varieties of tulip,
and the names given to them by florists, are,
like the different anemonies, nearly endless.
The kind which is considered as the " king of
florists' flowers," is the common tulip, (Tulipa
Gesneriana,) which was named after Conrad
Gesner, the celebrated Swiss botanist ; and
which has had more culture bestowed on it,
than perhaps any other flower in the world, if
we except such as are cultivated for the food
or other useful substances their plants may fur-
nish. Though this flower grows wild in the
Levant and Syria, and is occasionally seen in
the fields of Constantinople, yet the Turks have
for many centuries cultivated it in gardens. It
was brought to us from a garden of Turkey, by
Busbequius, and was first described by Gesner
in 1559. It appears, however, to have reached
England two years earlier, for Gerarde, at that
time, mentions the pains taken by one of his
11 loving friends, a curious searcher of simples
and learned apothecary," who undertook, if
possible, to find out the number of sorts ;
" but," adds the writer, " he had not done this
after twenty years, not being able to attain to
the end of his travail ; for that each new year
bringeth forth new plants of sundry colours,
not before seen; all which to describe particu-
larly, were to roll Sisyphus7 stone, or to num-
ber the sands."

An anecdote which is recorded of an occur-

MARCH. 31

rence during the prevalence of the tulipomania,
shows the value which was attached to their
bulbs at that time. A merchant having given
a .herring to a sailor, who had delivered some
goods, left him to his breakfast. The man
seeing some tulip-roots lying near him, mis-
took them for onions, and ate a part of one of
them with his fish. The narrator observes,
that this single root was so valuable, that the
sailor's meal cost the merchant more money
than if he had entertained a prince.

The tulip is much admired in the east, and
as it grows wild in Palestine, it is one of the
flowers which have been considered as the
" lilies of the field" of Scripture. The Turks,
as well as the Persians, hold annually a feast
of roses ; and the former people have also a
yearly festival of tulips, when the grand
seignior exhibits a display of oriental magnifi-
cence.

And now the large drooping bells of the
crown imperial (Fritillaria imperialis) hang
in garlands under the coronal of leaves which
surmounts the stem. It was formerly called
Persian lily, as it is a native of Persia. Its
sweet honey is said to be poisonous to bees.
The light purple bells, too, of the early bloom-
ing Penstemon {Pmstemon campanulatd) are
coming into flower. This species is a native
of Mexico, and all the kinds of this plant have
reached- us from the various parts of America,
where they are common flowers.

The bright blue flowers of the periwinkle

32 GARDEN FLOWERS.

( Vinca major') have been open here and there
all through the winter, but are much more
abundant now, and during the summer months.
They are the common ornaments of cottage
gardens, and sometimes grow wild by streams
or in woods. Hurdis describes them —

" See where the sky-blue periwinkle climbs
E'en to the cottage eaves, and hides the wall
And dairy lattice, with a thousand eyes
Pentagonally formed, to mock the skill
Of proud geometer."

This species is wild in all the countries of
southern and middle Europe.

But some of our garden periwinkles are not
blue. There is the Madagascar periwinkle,
{Vinca rosea,) of a beautiful pink colour ;
which, like our common species, blooms during
the greater part of the year, and bears its twin
flowers, and twines luxuriantly among the
trees and bushes of Hindoostan. Then there
are the silver-striped, gold-striped, white-
flowered, and several others, some of their
varieties produced by cultivation from our com-
mon blue species, and others introduced from
India. The name of vinca is derived from vin-
culum, a bond. The French term the flower
pervenche. Its old Anglo-Saxon name was
peruince, and Chaucer calls it by another ;
thus, he says,

" There sprange the violet al newe,
And lresh pewinke rich of hewe."

It was supposed, in the olden times, to cure the
cramp, and wreaths of its twigs were wound
round the limbs for this purpose,

MARCH. 33

The violet, the lowly violet, belongs to the
wild flowers, yet it is valued now in the garden,
when lavender and other fragrant plants are yet
waiting for sunshine to bring forth their scents.
The dark blue double sweet violet, is merely a
variety of our woodland flower, and the Rus-
sian and Neapolitan violets are a great addition
to our garden bed. The Neapolitans

" Now in sweet profusion spring,
Haunting the air."

This is a winter flower, too, for it has been
in blossom from October, and will still bloom
on till May. Many of our' garden violets are
brought from the fields and woods of America,
and are cultivated by our gardeners for the
beauty of their flowers, as they are not fra-
grant. There is one species very common on
the high mountains of Pennsylvania, with small
chocolate flowers and hairy roundish leaves.
The rich vegetable mould of some of these
beech forests, is very favourable to its growth,
and like our native violet, it seems to seek se-
clusion, rejoicing not alone in the quiet of the
woods, but often blooming quite hidden among
the dead leaves, which the high winds have
soattered from the leafy boughs. This flower
is on this account called the clandestine violet,
(Viola clandestina.) It is a common remedy
for wounds, among the dwellers in the forests,
and is called " all heal." The bruised plant is
applied with great success for similar purposes
in several parts of North America, and, like
most of the violet tribe, its roots contain W

34 GARDEN FLOWERS.

emetic property. Botanists have stated that a
larger number of species of violets are found in
North America, than in any other portion of
the globe.

Besides the tufts of violets of various kinds
which are found in our spring gardens, we
might enumerate the large tribe of heartsease
or pansy, which flower is, in fact, a violet, and
is the Viola tricolor of the botanist. A. few
only of these flowers are found within the
tropics. Many are from America, and several
from Siberia. Some very pretty pansies grow
on the cliffs of Northern Europe. Linnaeus, in
his work on the flowers of Lapland, says,
" Here and there, among the rocks, small
patches of vegetation were to be seen, full of a
variety of herbaceous plants ; among others,
Viola tricolor, of which some of the flowers
were white ; others, with the upper petals blue
and yellow, and the lateral and lower ones blue ;
while others, again, had a mixture of yellow in
the side petals. All these were found within a
foot of each other, sometimes on the same
stalk."

The striped flowers of the Chalcedonian iris
(Iris Susiana) now wave gaily over the borders.
Its flowers are the largest and handsomest of
this most beautiful genus, and it was called by
the old writers, the Turkey flower de luce.
The various species of iris are chiefly European.
Several are from different parts of Asia, and a
few from America. The pretty Persian iris, (Iris
Persica,) with its fragrant and bright-coloured

MARCH. 35

blossoms, is a native of the country which its
name denotes. We have also some pretty
Chinese species. The dark purple, almost
black kind of iris, called snake's head, (Iris
titberosa,) is common in the Levant. The very
lovely white species, the Florentine iris (Iris
Florentine!) is called by the French la fiambe
blanche. It grows wild in the south of Europe.
Milton describes these flowers, with their
various colours, as

" Iris aft hues."

Among the ancients an iris was the symbol of
eloquence.

Some species of iris have large bulbous roots,
and many of the African kinds are commonly
eaten as food by the Hottentots. " The Iris
edulis" says Thunberg when speaking of the Cape
of Good Hope, " a plant which grew here in
great abundance, and decorated the fields with
a variety of white and yellow and blue flowers,
was brought in great quantities by the slaves.
These bulbs were eaten either roasted and
boiled, or stewed with milk, and appeared to
me to be both palatable and nourishing."

The Hottentots live not only upon this root,
but on a great variety of bulbous-rooted plants,
with the bright blossoms of which the desert
is strewn. Bulbous plants are very generally
found in spots, which, at some parts of the
year, are dried up, and which would produce
no vegetation were it not for some such provi-
sion as is contained in the bulb. " Thus,"
jb2

3G GARDEN FLOWERS.

says Professor Lindley, " in places like the hard
dry Karroos of the Cape of Good Hope, where
rain falls only for three months in the year ;
in the parched plains of Barbary, where the
ground is rarely refreshed by showers, except
in the winter ; and on the most burning shores
of tropical India, beyond the reach of the tide,
and buried in sand, the temperature of which
rises to 180°, bulbous-rooted plants are enabled
to live and enliven such scenes with periodical
beauty." The succulent stems and leaves of
other plants of the sandy deserts afford a simi-
lar provision, by their power of absorbing and
retaining the dews which water the desert;
and shall we not say with the psalmist, " Oh
that men would praise the Lord for his good-
ness, and for his wonderful works !" The igno-
rant Hottentot knows not how to till his land,
nor will its arid soil admit of culture. He cares
not to provide beyond the morrow, yet is he
cared for by the God who feeds the fowl of
the air, and instructs the bird of the wilder-
ness.

And now every day the garden-trees seem to
produce more young buds, and the buds are
expanding so fast, notwithstanding the easterly
winds, and the blights which they bring with
them, that there will be shade enough by the
time when the sun shall drive us to seek it. The
winds yet whistle shrilly through some half-
clad branches, but Nature seems to be rejoicing,
and to be gradually putting on her strength
and beauty; and the green of the half- expanded

APRIL. 37

foliage, though exhibiting less variety than the
hues of later seasons, has a beauty of its own — -
a beauty of youth and freshness. It seems like
the untried feelings and hopes of the young life
of human beings ; and were we not certain that
it should again bloom in another spring, we
should sigh as we remembered that it must
turn to the withered leaf, as surely as the early
hope shall change to disappointment. But
there are hopes which may grow brighter and
brighter as seasons and years move onward;
and bloom in freshness through a long eternity ;
and bring forth that joy which fadeth not
away — hopes which shall be consummated in
an eternal spring, for they are founded on those
Dromises of God which are immutable.

APRIL.

"Is there a heart that beats and lives,
To which no joy the spring-time gives I
Alas, in that unfeeling heart
No love nor kindliness hath part ;
Or chilling want, or pining care,
Must brood, or comfortless despair :
Blest, who without profane alloy,
Can revel in that blameless joy ;
More blest in every welcome hour
If spring-time smile, or winter lower,
Who round him scattered, hears and sees
What still the excursive sense may please ;
Who round him finds, perchance unsought,
Fresh matter for improving thought;
And more, the more he looks abroad,
Marks, owns, and loves, the present God."— Bishop Mant.

The white and blushing blossoms of the fruit-
trees render the April garden a grove of flowers.

08 GARDEN FLOWEKS,

Among the most abundant and the brightest
in tint, are the apple-blossoms, which thicken
and redden until by the close of the month their
redness turns to paleness. The apple which
they produce is among the most valuable of
British fruits ; and as the tree may be grown in
any soil or climate, and will bear its bright
blossoms and its ruddy store for many years, it
is not surprising that it should be so generally
cultivated. Though only twenty-two kinds of
apple were known to the Eomans, several
hundred varieties are now reared in this land.
The blossoms of none are more beautiful than
those of the Siberian crab, (JPyrus prunifolid)
which is now in flower, and the small cherry-
like fruits of which, though harsh to the taste,
are the most deeply coloured and ornamental of
any of the species.

That this tree was cultivated by the ancient
Britons in the earlier days of this country,
there is little doubt. Our English name for the
fruit seems to have been derived from the
Saxon aeppel, while the cider made from its
juice is a slight abbreviation of the name of
seider, given by the early Britons to some
beverage which they had in common use. In
later days the apple juice has been used as a
cosmetic, and the old physicians estimated its
odour so highly that they often directed their
patients to hold in their hand " a sweet apple,"
as a remedy in some of those alarming infec-
tions, which, like the plague, once preyed upon
the inhabitants of this land.

APRIL. 39

The apple is familiar to us as a plant named
in Scripture. Thus the prophet Joel, describing
the mournful condition of the land of the
patriarchs, when lying under the wrath of
Jehovah, says, " The vine is dried up, and the
fig-tree languish eth, the pomegranate-tree, the
palm-tree also, and the apple-tree, even all the
trees of the forest are withered, because joy is
withered away from the sons of men." Some of
our best commentators, however, are of opinion,
that the word translated apple, ought rather to
have been rendered citron, as the handsome
appearance of this latter tree, both while in
flower and fruit, seems particularly suited to
the allusions of the inspired writers. The fruit,
too, is highly valued, while the apple of Pales-
tine is of an inferior quality.

Some very ornamental trees of the pear kind
are now putting forth their blossoms, and are
cultivated by our gardeners for their beautiful
flowers. A species of pear (Pyrus salvifolia)
with downy leaves, something like those of the
sage, and with white flowers, is one of the
prettiest kinds. Several of these plants have
long silvery white leaves, others narrow silky
leaves, like the willow ; while one species
(Pyrus nivalis) has round leaves, as white as
its snowy flowers. These trees are beautiful
in form, but their fruits are not fit for eating.
The ornamental plum-trees, too, are numerous,
with their white flowers ; and the pretty flower-
ing shrubs of the cherry-tree tribe, have a good
effect in the garden or shrubbery. Several of

40 GARDEN FLOWERS.

them have large double flowers. One kind of
cherry, the perfumed cherry-tree, (Cerasus
Mahaleb,) often found in gardens, has a sweet
scent, like that of the clematis, which is percept-
ible at a considerable distance. Its hard round
fruit is used for beads by Catholics, and the
wood is scented by the French, and manu-
factured into various articles of furniture. The
manufacture is carried on chiefly at the village
of St. Lucie, near Com mercy, and hence this
wood is called by the French, bois de St. Lucie.
With us the tree is planted for its profuse and
fragrant flowers.

" Shade-loving hyacinth, thou coxnest again,
And thy rich odours seem to swell the flow
Of the lark's song, the redbreast's loyely strain,
And the stream's tune."

Thus sang Elliott to our woodland hyacinth,
which now is blooming. Our garden hyacinths
are much like the wild species, but are double,
and have a variety of tints. Some are dark
blue or pale azure, others are of pink, amethyst,
white, or primrose colours. This flower is
the eastern hyacinth, (Hyacinihus Orientate.)
It has long shed its beauty on the in-doors'
room, from the water vase, and now flourishes
freely in the open air. It has one advantage
when grown in the water above its growth in
the ground, inasmuch as we ^can there see the
fibres from the root, which are almost as beau-
tiful as the flower itself, while, in the garden,
these are concealed from our view. A variety
of names have been given by florists to these

APRIL. 41

favourite flowers. The species thought to
have been earliest introduced into our gardens
is that called the King of Great Britain. Like
the tulip and narcissus, this flower has been
much cultivated by the .Dutch, and is still
among them an article of commerce with other
nations. They were the first European culti-
vators of the hyacinth, and raised it in their
gardens as early as the commencement of the
sixteenth century. About the latter end of
that century, there were seven or eight varieties
known in England, while Miller says that in
his time — rather more than a hundred years
ago — the Haarlem florists had above two
thousand kinds. The passion for hyacinths
which once existed in Holland, has, like many
other popular follies, greatly subsided ; but the
beauty of the flower will ever make it valuable ;
and above four hundred kinds are annually
brought into England, by seedsmen, from Hol-
land. The garden hyacinth is a native of the
Levant and of several parts of the east. It
grows wild in abundance in some parts of
Syria, flowering in February, and its roots and
blossoms are much larger than those with us.
It is said to be very beautiful on the lands
lying by the coast of the Jordan, from the
Dead Sea. Schubert, describing his course
from this part of Syria, along the border of the
Lake of Gennesaret, says, " Whoever desires
views really extensive and beautiful, and lilies,
tulips, hyacinths, and narcissuses, must in the
spring season visit this district, where also

b3

42 GARDEN FLOWERS.

the garlic assumes a size and beauty which
might render it worthy of becoming an orna-
mental plant in our gardens."

In Russia the hyacinth has been found wild,
with bells of deep yellow. The roots of all
species of hyacinth are more or less poisonous.
This flower is much admired in the east, and
some years since, the favourite apartment of
the Sultan at Constantinople was called the
chamber of the garden of hyacinths. Dr.
E. D. Clarke contrived to gain admittance into
this retired spot. He describes it as a small
garden, neatly arranged in a number of oblong
borders, edged with porcelain or Dutch tiles.
Not a flower was to be seen in this cherished
parterre, save the eastern hyacinth, and this
waved its thousands of bells ; but, by its mo-
notony, the garden was rendered less pleasing
than gardens in general, and had a dreary
and unvaried aspect. One would have ima-
gined that the powerful odours from a garden
of hyacinths, borne upon the warm air of the
south, would have rendered the neighbouring
apartment neither healthful nor agreeable ; yet
here, gazing upon the flowers, the Sultan spent
a great part of his time.

The starch hyacinth, called also grape
hyacinth or grape flower, (Muscari racemosum,)
received its former name from Curtis, on
account of its strong odour of starch, and the
quantity of thick mucilage which exists in the
plant. The old writers termed it tassel
hyacinth, " because," says Parkinson, " the

APRIL. 43

whole stalk, with the flowers upon it, doth
somewhat resemble a long purse tassel, and
thereupon divers gentlewomen have so named
it." It is in some parts of France called wild
onion, on account of its ovate, bulbous root.
The flowers are composed of a thick compact
cluster of small purple or ash-coloured bells.
The species called musk -grape hyacinth, is a
handsomer flower than the starch kind. It has
narrow leaves, more than a foot long, and grows
wild in southern Europe. The feathered hya-
cinth (Muscari comosum monstrosum) is an
exceedingly pretty border flower. It blows
during April and May. Several kinds have
an odour of musk, hence their Latin names
from muscus. This substance is called misk
by the Arabs. The flower is very general in
the east, and one of the commonest in the
Syrian field.

" In spite of nipping sheep and hungry cow,
The little daisy finds a place to blow."

Clare writes thus of our field flower, and the
garden daisies keep pace with it. Indeed all
the double, and quilled, and hen and chicken
daisies, which have, for centuries, ornamented
the edges of flower beds, are merely varieties
of the common daisy, (Bellis perennis.) The
Germans have raised a great number of
varieties of this flower, differing especially in
all the shades of red and white; but the dark
crimson daisy, so often clustering with the
London pride around the cottage garden bed,

is the most beautiful in hue. There is a

v

44 GARDEN FLOWERS.

garden species called the annual daisy, (Bellis
annua,) which is much like our British daisy,
and which grows wrild as commonly as that,
in the fields of Italy, Spain, and France. The
large white Portugal daisy (Beilis sylvestris) is
the common ornament of the meadows in the
land from which it derives its name.

Some of our most elegant spring border
flowers are the saxifrages. They are chiefly
Alpine plants, growing wild on rocky or stony
places. One of the most common kinds is that
which is in flower during this month, and
sometimes as early as February. It is the
thick leaved saxifrage, (Saxifimga crassifolia.)
It has pale purple blossoms, and large showy
foliage. During autumn the leaves of this
plant wither, and the stem turns quite black,
and forms fibres, which constitute the root of
the plant which is, in the following spring,
to enliven the garden. This flower is a native
of Siberia, growing among the snows of that
inclement clime, and blooming far up the hills
of those dreary regions. The variety called
the thick heart-leaved saxifrage bears larger
blossoms. The London pride {Saxifraga
umbrosa) is the hardiest and most common of
the genus. It grows wild on some of our
mountains. The French term it Amourette.

Nearly sixty species of saxifrage bloom in
the English garden. Though mountain flowers,
they will flourish on plain and valley; and
many, like the London pride, will bloom amid
the impure airs of the great metropolis. A

APRIL. 45

few are difficult to rear. They can bear the
cold spring winds, for their native haunts are
the high peaks of the mountains, and the
Alps and Pyrenees are made beautiful by their
blossoms, which open even on the limits of per-
petual snow ; but our winter, with its frosts,
injures them, for they have not at all times a
thick covering of snow over their roots, and a
wet season renders them still more sickly.
On their ice-clad regions they bloom unhurt,
and the snow gradually makes room for their
blossoms to show themselves. Mrs. Sigourney
has some lines addressed to mountain flowers
well suited to them: —

"Man, who panting toils
O'er slippery steeps, or trembling treads the verge
Of yawning gulfs, o'er which the headlong plunge
Is to eternity, looks shuddering up,
And marks ye in your placid loveliness,
Fearless yet frail, and clasping his chill hands,
Blesses your pencilled beauty ! 'Mid the pomp
Of mountain summits rushing on the sky,
And chaining the rapt soul in breathless awe,
He bows and binds you drooping to his breast,
Inhales your spirit from the frost-winged gale, *
And freer dreams of heaven. "

The pyramidal saxifrage (Samfraga coty-
ledon) is by no means an uncommon garden
flower, but its large handsome spikes of flowers
do not open till June. They are white, spotted
with rose colour, and grow on the Pyrenees.
The saffron-coloured saxifrage (Saxifraga
mutata) with its yellow flowers, requires
shelter from the frost, and is among the least
hardy of the tribe. It grows wild on the high
lands of Switzerland and Italv.

46 GARDEN FLOWERS.

One of the prettiest species is the round-
leaved, (Saocifraga rotundifolia^) which blooms
later in the summer, and is most abundant on
the rocks and in the valleys of Piedmont ;
those valleys made deeply interesting, not only
by natural scenerj", but by the faith of many,
who have in these seclusions died martyrs for
the truths of the gospel. A flower allied to the
saxifrages, and called golden saxifrage, grows
there too, and is eaten by the Piedmontese.

The purple flowers of the opposite-leaved
saxifrage, and the white-flowered granulated
kind, often bearing double flowers, are very
common in the garden during April. The
former was much admired by Dr. Clarke in
Norway. The most beautiful and scarce
plants were, he says, here pendant among the
cliffs : this species of saxifrage especially, and
a kind of gentian peeping above the snow.
The clustered Alpine, the starry, the larger
mountain, and the opposite- leaved species, also
grew in great beauty ; and " nothing," he adds,
" can be more elegant, than the hanging clusters
of the last, like pendent pearls upon the
rocks."

The bright flowers of the double furze
(Ulex Europceus) are very fragrant now. It
is merely a variety of our common moorland
furze. It is not often that double flowers are
found wild in this country, but this was dis-
covered some years ago to be growing on some
uncultivated moors of Devonshire, and has
since been propagated by cutting in the nursery

APRIL. 47

ground. The larger kind, called Irish whin, is
a very luxuriant plant for the garden or shrub-
bery. It has no spines, and is often eight feet
high. It must be propagated by cuttings, as
it has never been known to ripen its seeds.
The wild furze is common on our English
heaths, and Stephens saw it growing in great
profusion in central America, on the ruins of
some of those interesting ancient cities, on
whose history books throw little light, yet
whose origin and decay are deeply interesting
to the philosopher.

In many gardens we now find m flower one
or two species of arum, as the purple and
Virginian arums. All kinds of this plant are
sufficiently like our wild flower, called lords
and ladies, to be recognised without difficulty
as belonging to the same genus. They all
have a central column, called by botanists a
spadix, on which the flowers are found. The
roots of all, like those of the wild arum, are
pungent and acrid ; but some of them are
milder, and, as well as the leaves, are nutritive,
when cooked. The celebrated yam of the
isles of the southern ocean is the root of one
of them. They are very abundant, and of
various species in hot climates, and are used
as common food by the natives of the West
Indies. One species cultivated in our gardens,
and growing wild in many parts of southern
Europe, is the common dragon flower {Arum
dracunculus) called by the French la ser-
pentaire. It is a remarkable plant, and

48 GARDEN FLOWERS.

reminds one of a snake, by its leaves spotted
with purple and brown. Tlie flower lias so
strong an odour of carrion, that few persons
can bear to approach it. Still more offensive
is the odour from a species of arum which
grows in ditches, about the Straits of Magellan.
This plant has the appearance of an ulcer, and
so powerful is its odour of decayed meat, that
the flesh-fly deposits her eggs on its flowers.

Dr. Lindley, treating of the acridity which
exists in the roots of the arum tribe, names
one which has a' singular and dangerous poison.
This is the celebrated dumb cane of the West
Indies and South America. This plant grows
to the height of six feet. " It has," says this
writer, " the property, when chewed, of
swelling the tongue and destroying the power
of speech." Dr. Hooker relates an account of
a gardener, who incautiously bit a piece of
the dumb cane, when his tongue swelled to
such a degree that he could not move it. He
became utterly incapable of speaking, and was
confined to the house for some days, in the
most excruciating torment.

More than a dozen species of arum have
been introduced into the gardens of England,
but they are, on account of their unpleasant
odour, but little in general cultivated, and
chiefly left to the gardens of those who value
them as curiosities. One very lovely kind,
however, is often found gracing the hall or
parlour, and has a sweet fragrance. It is some-
times called the horn flower, (Calla Ethiopica.)

APRIL. 49

It has a large white flower, shaped like a leaf,
and looking like an alabaster vase, while from
the centre rises the bright golden column.
Leaves of glossy surface and bright green
colour, sometimes two feet in length, add to its
beauty, and it is so like the wild arum that it
will not be doubted as being of the same tribe.
It is very common at the Cape of Good Hope,
having a most magnificent appearance on any
moist portion of that arid soil, and growing
even in ditches.

Several species of arum afford medicines,
and the roots of some kinds, when boiled in
milk, are thought to have been very useful in
consumption. The dumb cane yields a juice
which gives a permanent dye to linen. Some
of the newly-gathered leaves are used in Deme-
rara as blisters. One kind, very abundant in
the woods of North America, is called the
Indian turnip, as the Indians eat its boiled root.
This is the arum atropurpureum, which has
handsome leaves tinged with blue, and which is
a vegetable of great service to the European
settlers in these vast forests. The soft, silky
leaves of some species are used in some hot
countries as plates and dishes.

One or two species of spiraea are now begin-
ning to put forth their blossoms on the shrubs.
The smooth-leaved spircea {Spircea Icevigata) is
one of the earliest, and is a native of Siberia.
Its flowers are of a pale rose colour. The
pretty flower, commonly called Italian May,
{Spircea hypericifolia^) is a very well-known

50 GARDEN FLOWERS.

species, with its large bunches of small white
flowers, among its dark green leaves, and it is
an under-shrub in the tall American forest,
blooming with us in the month from which it
has its familiar name. About the same time,
too, we see the bride wort or queen's embroidery,
with its spikes of pinkish lilac flowers, looking
much like some piece of finely- wrought needle-
work ; and a little later the Virginian Guelder
rose, and the Californian species, with its
loose clusters of feather-like white flowers,
floating up and down to every summer breeze,
may be seen decking the summer bed, delight-
ing most in a moist soil, and flourishing to
fullest perfection in the garden through which
a stream meanders.

Nor is this genus destitute of those herb-
aceous plants, those lowlier flowers, which
sometimes find room on beds which could not
admit of the more spreading shrub. The mea-
dow sweet (Spircea ulmarid) is often brought
from our wild fields into the garden; the goat's
beard, {Spircea arancus^) a Siberian species, is
very ornamental with its white flowers in the
month of June ; and the dropwort of our
meads (Spircea filipendula) is very pretty in
the garden, when its blossoms have, by culture,
been rendered double.

The bladder-nut (Staphylea pinnata) is a
hardy plant of North America, now in bloom.
Its flowers are white, and the brown seeds are
enclosed in a large inflated capsule or bladder.
The hard smooth nuts, bitter as they are, are

APRIL. 01

eaten in some countries, and in Catholic lands,
are strung as necklaces and rosaries.

During this and next month we may see the
flowers of the numerous varieties of auricula,
{Auricula primula.) Most of them are kept in
pots, but some common kinds are found in the
garden, blooming beside the early hyacinth
and other spring flowers. This flower has
received great attention from florists, and in-
numerable varieties, differing both in blossoms
and foliage from each other, have been the
result of their pains. Several volumes have
been written solely upon its culture, their
authors recommending a great number of
modes of treatment. The artisans of Lanca-
shire have long been celebrated for the beauty
of their auriculas, and Loudon observes, that it
is no uncommon thing for a mechanic of that
county, who earns from eighteen to thirty
shillings per week, to give two guineas for a
fresh variety, in order to raise seedlings from
it. This flower was long known as the moun-
tain or French cowslip. It deserves its former
name, for it blooms above the snows of many
alpine regions of Italy, Switzerland, and Ger-
many. It is also found wild in the neigh-
bourhood of Astracan. The old botanists
termed it bear's ear {Auricula ursi) from the
shape of its leaves, and gardeners have many
fanciful names for the varieties they have
raised. In its wild state the auricula is gene-
rally of a red or yellow, sometimes of a purple
colour, and occasionally variegated, or scattered

52 . GARDEN FLOWERS.

over with a mealy powder. In the garden the
darker kinds have usually more or less of this
white powder on their blossoms, and some-
times, too, on their foliage, as Thomson de-
scribes them —

" Auriculas enriched
With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves."

The expressed juice of the leaves of the
auricula, was, in former days, a valued medi-
cine ; and Kay gravely says of it, that if min-
gled with the milk of a red cow, it will cure
the most intense headache.

A pretty flower, called Greek valerian, (Po-
lemoniwn reptans^) is already in bloom. It has
light blue flowers, and is a native of America.
A much more frequent kind is the species
generally called Jacob's ladder, (Polemoniiun
cceruleum,) which blooms in almost every gar-
den in the month following this. It has numer--
ous blossoms, either of a light blue, or varying
in all the shades of blue and bluish white, to a
pure snow-white tint. This flower is in Staf-
fordshire called charity ; and the familiar name
of Jacob's ladder was probably suggested by
the form of its leaves, which consist of a num-
ber of leaflets, opposite to each other, on the
stem, and not unlike steps. This was sufficient
to lead our forefathers to adopt it as an emblem
of something scriptural, at a period when monks
and friars were the chief cultivators of plants,
and the great discoverers of their virtues. The
ancient writers held in great repute a plant
which they termed polemonium. The name is

APRIL. 53

taken from the Greek word signifying war, and
Pliny relates, that it received this designation
from its having been the cause of war between
two kings, each of whom claimed the merit of
having discovered some medicinal properties
which it was supposed to possess. Great in-
deed must its virtues have been, if its good to
mankind could have at all compensated for the
ills brought on by war, and its attendant
miseries ; but if the plant we now call Greek
valerian, is the same as that which occupied so
much attention in ancient days, the discovery
was indeed of little value, and its remedial
effects of small power. It is not improbable,
however, that the old name has descended, in
this instance, to another flower than that to
which it was originally given.

And now several of those ornamental plants
of modern gardens, the flowering currant and
gooseberry bushes, are hanging their abundant
blossoms to the sunshine. These shrubs were
unknown to us a century since, though now so
many species are common. One of the most
general of them all is now in blossom. This is
the red-flowered black currant, (Bibes sangui-
neum.) Several varieties of this species are
cultivated, distinguished chiefly by the colour
of their blossoms. The dark-tinted variety is
the prettiest. This plant was brought hither
from California, where it grows wild, be-
neath the shade of the wood. It is found, wild,
too, most frequently, and in greatest luxuri-
ance, in the neighbourhood of streams. Mrs.

54 GARDEN FLOWERS.

Loudon observes, that " the colour of the
flowers varies very much according to the soil
on which the shrub is grown : the darkest and
brightest hue has been observable in those plants
which are grown on calcareous soils, and the
palest and least brilliant are those grown on
sandy soils." All the different species of flow-
ering currant are hardy plants, and bloom
early in the year.

Perhaps the most ornamental of all the com-
mon species of ribes, is the snowy- flowered
gooseberry, (Bibes niveum,) with its hanging
bells as white as the purest wax, and its dark
purple fruits of the later season, which are
very agreeable to the palate. Then there are
other species, with red bells and long stamens,
like the fuchsia ; and. others with pale green
or gold-coloured blossoms ; while one beautiful
kind, the wax-leaved currant, (Bibes cereum,)
has round leaves covered with a thin layer
of a wax-like substance, and well deserves its
distinctive name. The fruits of these flowering
currant bushes are all wholesome, and some of
them agreeable to the taste. They are purple,
scarlet, or black in colour. Several of them,
however, will not ripen in this country, and
others have a harsh and crude flavour.

Many species of berberry are daily becoming
gayer with their pretty yellow flowers, nor will
they be less ornamental to the garden, when, in
the autumnal season, their dark red pendulous
fruits will glitter among the branches. Our
common kind (Berberis vulgaris) is well known,

APRIL. 55

but it is in very ill repute with the farmer, as
it is believed to be injurious to corn. I Tow
far this reproach is merited, is a question still
much discussed by botanical writers. The
injury is supposed to originate with an insect,
which is very fond of the berberry tree, and
very generally found upon it, and this is thought
to cause a kind of powder, which, being scat-
tered over the neighbouring cornfield, alights
upon the wheat and barley, and produces a
sort of fungus, rendering the plant unhealthy,
and giving it the appearance of mildewed corn.
Several naturalists of eminence have advocated
this popular opinion. The flowers of the com-
mon species possess stamens of so irritable a
nature, that Linnceus observed them all to tend
towards the central column, or pistil, if touched
ever so lightly by the bee ; and their singular
sensibility may be easily seen, by touching one
of the stamens with a pin, when they all imme-
diately curve and meet at the point. There is
a great degree of acidity in the red fruits of
this plant, and they are considered to afford
a good medicine in cases of fever ; while they
hang untouched by the birds, which do not
relish their sour flavour. These fruits are
used for preserves, for garnishing dishes, and,
enclosed in sugar, are prepared as comfits by
confectioners. A great degree of the acidity is
also found in the bluish green leaves of the
berberry. The roots yield a yellow colour,
which is much used in Poland for dying lea-
ther; and the astringent bark and stem are

56 GARDEN FL0WERS.

valuable to our manufacturers in their colour-
ing preparations. Sometimes the fruits of the
common berbeiry are of a yellow colour, and
occasionally they are purple in hue.

That pretty little border flower, the Venus's
looking-glass, {Campanula speculum,) with its
white or purple circular blossoms, is very com-
mon. From its shape, like that of the ancient
mirror, this flower derived its familiar name;
and as the astronomical sign of Venus (9) was
a figure of the old mirror, and the handle by
which it was held, so the flower bears, too, the
name of the fabled goddess. The root of this
plant, like those of most other species of cam-
panula, contains a milky juice. The flower
grows very freely in the cornfields of southern
Europe, and is very common in France and
Italy, though on the former lands it is not
usually quite so large as we see it in our gar-
dens. A new species of Venus's looking-glass
{Campanula Lorei) has lately been introduced
into the English nursery grounds. The flower
is called in France la doucette, and it was for-
merly known in this country as the corn-pink
and corn-gilliflower.

Some of the more hardy kinds of that sin-
gular flower the fig-marigold, are, by the end
of the month, glittering on the stone or rock-
work of the garden, and are the heralds of the
hundreds, which shall, as the season advances,
put forth their starry flowers. This handsome
tribe has been brought to us from the Cape
of Good Hope, and with its singular beauty

APRIL. 57

and variety of colours, enlivens the dreary
deserts of Africa. Their common name was
given on account of their fruit, which is shaped
like a fig, and which is eaten by the Hotten-
tots ; while the marigold is a good type of the
form of most of their blossoms. From the flowers
opening chiefly at mid-day, and never expand-
ing but to the sunshine, their botanic name is
derived from the Greek words mid-day flower.
The most common and hardy of all this
large genus of flowers, is the great yellow-
flowered kind, (Mesembryanthemiim pomeridi-
amcm,) with its showy golden starry blossoms,
opening in June. One of the hardy kinds is
now in bloom. This is the long-horned fig
marigold, (Meseiiibryanthemum corniculatum,)
with flowers of pale yellow. All these plants
require to be kept very dry, their succulent
leaves deriving and retaining from our humid
atmosphere, more than enough moisture to
nourish them. Some of their leaves are most
singular and even grotesque in form. They
are described on the deserts of Africa as having
the appearance of masses of spotted stones or
shells. The colours of the flowers are not ex-
ceeded in brilliance by any tints of the vege-
table kingdom; they are yellow, pink, scarlet,
violet, amethyst, purple, and indeed of every
tint of the rainbow.

Two kinds of fig-marigold, though requiring
shelter during the greater part of the year,
are very popular plants, and often deck the
cottage window, beside the fuchsias and

58 GARDEN FLOWERS.

geraniums, which preside there. These are
those curious species, the ice plants, which
even on the warm summer day, seem as if
winter had condensed his icicles on their suc-
culent stems and leaves. One of these, the
\ ice plant (Mesembryanthemum crystallinum) is
a biennial plant. The common frozen plant
(Mesembryanlhemum glaciale) is an annual.
They have both white flowers, but it is for the
beauty of the crystallization on their foliage,
that they deserve culture. They were brought
into our gardens from Greece.

The leaves of several species of this plant
contain soda. One kind especially, the knot-
flowered fig-marigold, which is a native of
some of the dry plains of Egypt, is burned for
the 'great quantity of potash to be found in its
ashes. This plant, as well as another species,
burned for the barilla or soda which they con-
tain, are, by the Arabic writers, comprehended
under the general name of ghasool, signifying
the washer or washing herb, and they are
common not only in the deserts of Arabia, but
also in various parts of Syria. The ashes of
this and a similar species, yielding alkaline
substances, are supposed to be referred to in
Scripture under the word translated " soap" in
our version. " Though thou wash thee with
nitre, and take thee much soap," said the
prophet Jeremiah, "yet thine iniquity is
marked before me, saith the Lord God." For
the evil heart of Israel had led him astray
from God, so that he had become polluted in

APRIL. 59

the eyes of Jehovah, and no appliance of
man's device could cleanse him, till he turned
and submitted himself to God. As it is in
our day, so it was then, man could not atone
for past pollution or present sin, and the only
means of purification and forgiveness was that
which the Holy Scriptures reveal.

The roots of some of these flowers, especially
one termed the edible fig marigold (Mesembry-
anthemum edule) are very valuable to the Hot-
tentots, who often pull them up from their
sandy soils. One species of this plant is
abundant in the very different climate of the
Canadian woods. When the soil is sandy it
covers the earth like a thick mat, and when it
encroaches on the spot which the colonist has
appropriated for a garden, it is a most trouble-
some weed. It is a variety of the hour-
blowing fig marigold, and sends forth a con-
stant succession of yellow star-shaped flowers
from among its thick green trailing stalks and
its juicy foliage.

Kitto speaks of these flowers on the Arabian
deserts as exceedingly numerous, and as ex-
hibiting every playful variety in the form of
the leaves. He says that " their aspect often
presents a delightful contrast to the comfortless
waste around, and the arid soil beneath
them.'*

Not the less beautiful, because it is very
common, is the lilac tree, (Syringa vulgaris,)
which graces alike the poor man's cottage
door, and the highest cultured garden of his

60 GARDEN FLOWERS.

rich neighbour. The old name of this plant
was pipe-tree, and pipe-privet, by either of
which it was known to the botanists of queen
Elizabeth's days ; and it was called privet be-
cause it was usually grafted on stocks of that
shrub, while its name of pipe originated with
the Turks, as the stems were often used by
them, for their long pipes. It is called in
Barbary by the name of sirinx, and hence we
have probably the name of syringa. This
flower is a native of Persia and other parts of
the east, as well as of Hungary and the shores
of the Danube. The Turks, who, in addition
to the love of flowers which they possess in
common with all the people of the east, have
an enthusiastic regard for a flowering tree, were
the people from whom we first received this
beautiful addition to our gardens. It was
brought from the gardens of Constantinople,
in the sixteenth century, by the ambassador
Busbequius, and planted in the gardens of
Vienna. Being a plant which will bear a con-
siderable degree of smoke, it was soon a
favourite in the London gardens ; nor is any
shrub or tree more common than this, now, in
the plots which lie around the dwellings in the
suburban villages of our metropolis, where it
flourishes exceedingly well. Even the courts
and back yards of the crowded streets are
often enlivened by its green leaves, though its
purple clusters refuse to bud in an atmosphere
so laden with fog and soot. It probably was
introduced during the reign of Henry Yin.,

APRIL. 61

as when Cromwell caused an inventory to be
made of the plants which* grew in the garden
of the palace of Nonsuch, there were enume-
rated " six lilackes, trees which have no fruit,
but only a pleasant smell." Gerarde, in 1597,
savs of the white and blue lilacs, " I have
them in my garden in great plenty." Our
common English name is merely a corruption
of that by which this shrub is usually called
in its native Persia, where it is known as the
lilag, which word signifies a flower. The
French, too, term it le lilas. There are several
common varieties of this species, as the blue
lilac, (Syringa v. ccerulea) and the purple lilac,
{Syringa v. violacea) called the Scotch lilac ; and
as beautiful as either are the large thick
clusters of the white lilac, now contrasting
with the darker-coloured species, and which
unfolds its fair flowers a week or two earlier
than even its deeper-tinted companion. There
are also two varieties with reddish purple
flowers, called by the French gardeners, le lilas
de Marly. Cowper had noticed its many hues.

"Various in array, now white
Now sanguine, and her beauteous head now set
With purple spikes pyramidal ; as if
Studious of ornament, yet unresolved
Which hues she most approved, she chose them all."

Scarcely less frequent in our gardens, and
easily distinguished from the common kind, is
that species termed the Persian lilac, {Syringa
Persica. ) It is on the hills and plains of the
lovely Persia still more general than is the
larger kind, Its leaves are long and pointed,

62 GARDEN FLOWERS.

while those of the common lilac are broad and
heart-shaped. Its okisters of flowers are less
compact, but blow loosely about in the
southerly winds of April, diffusing an odour,
delicious in the outer air, but which would
render the atmosphere of an apartment faint
and sickly. In Persia its delicate lilac flowers
are much admired ; and it often mingles with
the rose, the narcissus, and the jonquil, in those
bouquets which are sent by eastern letters as
expressions of sentiment.

The Persian lilac was, long after its intro-
duction into Europe, termed Persian jessamine,
and the Italians called it German jessamine.
This plant is sometimes grown in pots, and
made to flower at Christmas, but by this process
it quite loses its fragrance.

There are, in our garden, two or three
varieties of the Persian, besides some other
species of lilac. The Chinese lilac, with purple
flowers, is, as its name implies, a plant growing
wild in the celestial empire : while another
species is found wild on the mountains about
Pekin ; and a third smiles in beauty in
Kumaon, near the lofty mountains of the
Himalaya. These will, probably, some day
grace our English gardens, as they seem likely
to bear our climate.

MAY. 63

MAY.

11 All the flowers that gild the spring,
Hither their still music bring ;
If Heaven bless them, thankful, they
Smell more sweet, and look more gay.

11 Though their voices gentle be,
Streams have too their melody ;
Night and day they warbling run,
Never pause, but still sing on.

" Wake, for shame, my sluggish heart,
Wake and gladly sing thy part ;
Learn of birds, and streams, and flowers,
How to use thy nobler powers." — Hickes.

How wonderful appears the change which a

few weeks have now made on the face of

Nature, if we compare this month, and its

aspects and productions, with the comparatively

bare and gloomy appearance of the garden

during February and March ! How has the

Almighty's word been working as surely in

bringing forth the bright verdure and radiant

flowers from their wintry darkness, as it did

when he framed this beautifully organized

world out of chaos. In the northern countries

of Europe, where the change is greater and

more rapid, the effect is less pleasing than in

the gradual transition of our winter to spring.

Laing, speaking of this in Norway, says, the

snow is painfully bright to the eyes under " the

sunshine. When it melts, vegetation bursts

forth at once ; but the patchy, un picturesque

appearance of the country, with a knob of

a rock here, and a corner of a field there,

appearing through the white covering, deprives

us of the pleasing impressions of an English

spring. The rapid advance of vegetation is

64 GARDEN FLOWERS.

more astonishing than pleasing. It is not
agreeable to step thus, all at once, from dead
winter to living summer, and to lose the charm
and interest of the gradual revival of all that
has leaf or wing."

In many tropical countries the change from
the winter to the early season is little marked,
for when the trees are evergreen, and the
flowers always bright, there is less variety in
the aspect of the season. The gradual coming
of leaves and flowers in our climate, and their
no less gradual decline, is to the year what the
morning and evening twilight are to the day.
We should never estimate the shortness of life
were it not for the changing aspects of things
around us ; and whether this change be sudden
or slow, whether the flowers go and come in a
few hours, or a few weeks, yet as we mark
these beautiful objects to which the Scripture
has compared our mortal lives, we should
adopt the words of David: " Lord, make me to
know mine end, and the measure of my days,
that I may know how frail I am."

May is universally hailed by the poets, as
the loveliest month of the year, and its coming
seems to revive in some the freshness of life,
and to make them feel young again. Many
sweet and familiar flowers now spring up day
by day on the garden bed ; and some very
beautiful shrubs are dressed in their garlands
of blossoms. The scarlet hawthorn blushes
like the rose, and it is merely a variety of our
wilding May. The dark lilac still contends with

MAY. C5

the snowy balls of the guelder rose ; and on
the low boughs of the Judas tree (Cercis Sili-
quastrum) the beautiful pink flowers are
clustering in abundance. Its large showy
leaves are eaten on the continent in salads, as
are also those of the Canadian species, by the
settlers in the woods. The flowers have a
slight and agreeable acidity, and are in France
fried in batter and eaten; while the wood,
finely veined with black and green, takes so
good a polish, as to be well adapted for the
cabinet maker, and the young branches are
used for dyeing wool.

Not less beautiful than either of the pre-
ceding flowers are the golden clusters which
now hang down from the laburnum, (Cytisus
laburnum.) This plant, which grows very
abundantly on the Swiss mountains, is called
by the French Cytise des Alpes. The wood of
the laburnum is so very valuable, that it has
been a matter of surprise that the tree should
not have been cultivated for its timber. Even
though growing to a comparatively small size
in our country, it is very useful for many
purposes. The Komans thought this wood
next in value to ebony, and though this is not
so hard as that wood, yet, from its durability,
furniture made of it is stronger than that
manufactured of mahogany. The blossoms
of the laburnum are very fragrant, and their
hue gave to it the common country name of
golden chain. Many persons are affected with
bead-ache by their odour, and the seeds have

66 GARDEN FLOWERS.

a powerful influence on the human constitution.
Happily they have not the pleasant flavour
which might render them attractive to chil-
dren ; yet the writer of these pages once saw
two little ones rendered very ill by having eaten
laburnum seeds, and it required the prompt
use of medical remedies to prevent more lasting
effects on the constitution.

Another species of the laburnum, commonly
called in our country the pigeon pea, produces
seeds which are much eaten by the negroes
and poor people of the West Indies, wrhile they
are often given to horses and other cattle,
which thrive exceedingly well on them. In
the island of Martinico they are served at
table as a dish for the rich, \yh.o prefer them
even to the green peas of our country. Both
our wild and cultured broom plants are by
many writers considered as species of the
cytisus. The Scotch laburnum (Cytisus
alpinus) has larger leaves and flowers than the
common kind. It is frequent in our gardens,
and blossoms a month later than that. The
Italians name it after this month, as we do
our hawthorn ; for with them it blooms in
May.

A very common flower, to be found indeed
in almost every garden, is the red spur flower,
or red valerian, commonly termed Pretty
Betty. It has long been known to botanists as
Valeriana rubra, but is now called Gentranthus
rubra. It varies in all shades of red, from,
crimson to palest pink, and is sometimes of a

MAY. 67

pinkish or yellowish white. Its large clusters
of blossoms are composed of a great number
of small flowers, and they are to be seen
through all the summer months, as late as
September. It blooms on the heights of
Mount Vesuvius, and enlivens the ashy soil of
the barren spot by its cheerful tint. It has
been seen too by the British traveller in
northern Africa, and awakened reminiscences
of the garden plots of his native land. The
scent of this species, as well as that of some
other kinds, is very fragrant.

Another species called the Celtic nard, or
nard valerian, ( Valeriana Celtica,) has a root far
more odorous than this, and which is stronger
when the plant is growing on its native
Alps than in the moister soil of our garden
ground. It is a native of France, Italy, and
Switzerland. Its roots, which are black, are
imported from the mountains of Austria into
E^ypt, whence it has been carried both into
Africa and Asia. It is valued by the orientals
as a sweet-smelling drug, and much used,
especially in Egypt, for perfuming the baths
in which the people of that country spend so
much of their time. There seems much reason
to believe that the spikenard of the ancients, as
well as the fragrant root called by the modern
Hindoos nard or Jatamansi, is the root of a plant
of the Valerian family, and thus this plant is by
some writers considered to be the spikenard of
Scripture, which Solomon describes as " sending
forth a pleasant smell," and which was one of

c2

68 GARDEN FLOWERS.

the sweet essences with which Mary anointed
the dead body of our Lord and Redeemer.

The root of our common wild valerian
( Valeriana officinalis) possesses very great me-
dicinal power, and its odour is very strong, but
disagreeable. It is cultivated in Derbyshire
for medicinal purposes, but the root is prefer-
able in its wild state to that under cultivation.

Some very pretty species of lobelia are in
blossom in May; several of this genus are
among the handsomest of our garden flowers.
Some are lowly-looking, simple blossoms,
scarcely peeping from above their leaves;
others are tall and showy. A few of them are
blue ; but the greater number are of a bright
scarlet or pink colour, while some among their
number are of a full yellow. One of the most
common, and also of the most striking beauty,
is that called the cardinal flower, {Lobelia car-
dinalis,) with its long slender leaves, and spike
of blossoms, so bright in hue as to have re-
minded the originator of its name, of the scarlet
cloth of Rome ; while its shape is not altogether
dissimilar to the hat of the Romish ecclesiastic.
It is a native of Virginia, and was described by
Parkinson, in his " Garden of Flowers," where
he calls it a " brave plant." The species
brought from Mexico, the fulgent lobelia, (Lo-
belia fulge?is,) and that brilliant flower called
the splendid or shiny lobelia, (Lobelia splen-
dens,) with a tint outrivalling that of the
brightest poppy, and its foliage marked with
purple spots, is another Mexican species, and

MAY. 69

these are the handsomest of the tribe to be
found in our gardens.

Almost all the lobelias are natives of tropical
climates, many of them being the wild flowers
of the West Indian islands. Several of them
have been brought from the Cape of Good
Hope, and others grow in the warmer regions
of South America. A few of their number
require to be kept in the greenhouse.

A milky fluid, in greater or less quantity,
exists in every individual of this species of
plant, and it is of so acrid a quality that the
whole tribe may be considered as of a danger-
ous nature. One species, (Lobelia tupa,) a
native of Chile, yields a virulent poison; and
one of the most powerful medicines used in
North America, is the juice of the inflated
lobelia, which, unless given only in small doses,
proves fatal. So deleterious is the beautiful
white lobelia, (Lobelia longiflora,) that when
taken internally it causes death ; while if the
hand which has touched it, be unguardedly
placed on the eye, it produces a violent inflam-
mation. This flower grows wild on moist
places, and by stream sides in the West Indies.
Like the common reed of our native land,
(Arundo phragmitis,) its presence is, most
probably, indicative of an unhealthy atmo-
sphere, as the moist spots in the West Indies
are always unfavourable to health. It adds
much, however, to the beauty of the lands
where it flourishes, and delights the lover of
flowers by its beauty, but it also renders the
pasture very dangerous to horses, which are

70 GARDEN FLOWERS.

sometimes allured by the verdure around it, to
graze upon these plants, and soon fall victims
to its powerful poison. This is so often the
case, that the Spanish Americans give it a
name significant of its destructive effect on
those animals. Our beautiful cardinal flower
contains a dangerous poison. One species of
lobelia is smoked by the negroes, and termed
Indian tobacco.

A very common border flower now, is the
spider wort, (Trades cantia Virginica,) which,
as its name implies, is a native of North Ame-
rica, and very general in several parts of that
country. m It is there often called by the name
of the "life of man;" because, like that, though
beautiful it is brief, for it soon withers. Its
botanic name stands as a record of John Tra-
descant, gardener to Charles I., who introduced
several plants into England, and this among
others ; and whose museum of curiosities is
celebrated as the earliest collection of that kind,
made in our land. It is now in the Ashmolean
museum of the University of Oxford.

We have several garden species of spider
wort. None are found wild either in Europe
or Northern Asia, but several are brought
from the East Indies and Ceylon, and others
from America. Some of them have rose-
coloured blossoms, but they chiefly vary in all
the shades of blue. They are not a very hand-
some tribe of flowers, and our common species
is as ornamental as any, its dark blue petals
and yellow anthers showing to advantage among
its glossy green leaves.

MAY. 71

During May, and the following months, the
different species of viper's bugloss exhibit their
handsome purple, violet-coloured, or pale blue
flowers. None are more beautiful than our
wild kind, (Echium vulgare,) but many are very
ornamental. The red viper's bugloss, which,
however, is not yet in flower, is a showy plant,
though the stems and leaves are rough with
bristly hairs. It grows on the steppes of Russia,
for those vast regions approaching the Black Sea,
though dreary from the absence of trees, are
enlivened with a variety of flowers, of which
this is among the most conspicuous. Dr.
Clarke says he saw it here, and it was in other
parts of Eussia more common. It grows
chiefly among corn. The women of the Don
use it in painting their cheeks, the root, while
fresh, yielding a bright vermilion tint. Gmelin
recommends its transplantation and the appli-
cation of its colouring properties to objects of
more importance . The reddish brown substance
contained in this plant, is now much used by
dyers ; and one species of the viper's bugloss,
which has been naturalized in Brazil, is used,
like our wild borage, to give coolness to liquids
in which its leaves are steeped. Some species
were used by the Romans for dyeing.

We have more than twenty species of bu-
gloss in gardens. Blue is the prevailing colour
of their flowers, but some which have reached
us from the Cape of Good Hope, the Canary
and Madeira islands, have red or white blos-
soms.

72 GARDEN FLOWERS.

The geraniums, or, as they are more properly
called, the pelargoniums, flower throughout the
summer. We have about six hundred distinct
species, but most of them are grown either in
the greenhouse or in the in-doors apartment.
We received the plant from the Cape of Good
Hope, where their handsome flowers are in
great profusion ; but new varieties are every
year raised from seed in England. The myrtle,
too (Myrtus communis) is opening its fragrant
white blossoms. It has several varieties, of
which one of the best is the Roman myrtle.
This shrub grows wild in the south of France
and Spain, in Italy and Greece, and in north-
ern Africa ; while in many parts of Syria it is
very abundant, as we might infer from the
numerous allusions made to it in the sacred
writings. All travellers in the east notice
its luxuriance. On the hills which lie about
Jerusalem, forming its natural protection, and
which were to suggest to the Hebrew the re-
membrance that God was thus round about his
saints, the white myrtle spray is seen in profu-
sion, amid its dark green boughs. Banks of
rivers, hill sides, wide plains, and valleys
among mountains, are all rendered sweet by its
odour. Mrs. Piozzi admired the beauty of this
shrub too, near Pisa in Italy, where, she says,
the mountains are mountains of marble, and
the bushes on them bushes of myrtle, as large
as the hawthorn. In Devonshire the myrtle
thrives well in the open air : Carrington thus
notices it : —

MAY. 73

" And there in liveliest green attired,
Smiling like hope, and cheering the glad eye,
The meek, unsheltered myrtle sweetly hlooms."

The poet adds, that several houses in Mary-
church, and indeed in almost every village
on the southern coast of Devon, are profusely
bespread with it.

By the middle of the month, the Peruvian
heliotrope (Heliotr opium Peruvianum) shows
its delicate lilac flowers, and perfumes the air
with its scent — a scent so powerful, that it is
scarcely to be borne in a room. It resembles
that of new-made hay, or of cooked fruit. It
was termed by the Latins, verrucaria, because
its expressed juice, mingled with salt, was used
to cure warts. We have other species of helio-
trope, but this and the species termed Euro-
pean (Heliotr opium Europceum) are the most,
general, and the latter is more hardy than the
Peruvian. Its flowers are paler, and it is a
native of southern Europe. The ancients
named these plants from the sun and " to turn,"
and the old writers assert, that the blossoms
always follow the sun. The heliotropes re-
quire protection during winter.

Oar common marigold (Calendula officinalis)
is indeed so common, that we almost regard it
as a weed in the border, and the gardener
eradicates many of the young plants, which
have arisen from the readily dispersed seeds of
the last summer. Some of the double varieties
of the common marigold are very handsome
flowers, and so also are the deep orange co-
loured blossoms of the starry marigold (Calen-
c3

74: GARDEN FLOWERS,

dula stellata.) The common species grows wild
in fields and vineyards in Italy, and pretty
generally in cultivated lands throughout the
countries at the south of Europe. It is called
by the French, souci du jardin, and by the
Germans goldblume. It is still mingled by
cottagers with soup and broth, but was once
much more generally used for that purpose.
The idea that it tended to (i comfort the heart
and spirits," recommended it not only as a
medicine, but induced good housewives to dry
its yellow petals as a store for winter. Its
properties are sudorific, and it was deemed a
preventive to infection. A distilled water, a
conserve, and a kind of vinegar, are still ob-
tained from its blossoms, but its young leaves
are not now eaten as they formerly were for
salads.

Our old poets call this flower golde and mary
budde, as well as marigold. This last name it
received from the absurd and popular tradition
that the virgin Mary wore the flower in her
bosom.

Elliott alludes to the use which the cottagers
make of the marigold.

11 There is a flower, the housewife knows it well."

And thus describes its closing during wet
weather : —

11 It hoards no dew-drops, like the cups of May,
But rich as sunset, when the rain is o'er,
Spreads flaming petals from a burning core ;
Which, if morii weep, their sorrowing buds upfold
To wake and brighten when bright noon is near."

MAY. 75

This closing of the flower during the rain, as
well as its habit of folding up its petals early in
the afternoon, while it does not open them till
after nine in the morning, was remarked not
only by Linnaeus, but had rendered the flower
a theme of various comparisons to the older
poets. Thus Herrick, alluding to the approach
of evening, says : —

"No marigolds yet closed are,
No shadows yet appear;
Nor doth the early shepherd's star
Shine like a spangle here."

The marigolds received their name on ac-
count of their flowering during the calends of
each month. The common marigold, indeed,
is in bloom in every season, except when snow
covers the ground, and is often among the
brightest flowers of the garden in December and
January.

The Cape marigolds are natives of that part
of Africa after which they are named. The
small Cape marigold, {Calendula pluvialis,)
which is the commonest of them, was called the
rainy marigold, by Linnaeus, because it is always
closed, not only during rain, but under a cloudy
sky. The rays of this flower are white inside,
and of a dark purple on the outer surface. It
blooms from June till August,

The French term the marigold souci, (care,)
but in the reign of Henry viii. it was called
souvenir, and ladies wore wreaths of these
flowers, intermixed with the pansy, whose name,

76 GARDEN FLOWERS.

derived from the French word pensee, (thought,)
was also indicative of remembrance.

And now in this pleasant month we see the
different mallows assume their tints of deep red
or purple, pink or white, and more rarely, of
yellow or orange. They are beautiful flowers,
and all possess more or less the mucilaginous
property which renders some so useful in
medicine. They are of easy culture, and some
so hardy as to grow on any soil, in any situa-
tion. Several of the most handsome species
are brought from the Cape of Good Hope, and
the fields of southern Europe have supplied us
with others.

The Egyptians, Chinese, and Syrians, are
said by travellers to use some kinds of mallow
as food. Thus Biddulph, an old writer quoted
by Dr. Royle, says, " We saw many poor peo-
ple collecting mallows and three-leaved grass,
and asked them what they did with it, and they
answered that it was all their food, and that
they boiled it and did eat it." The leaves of
the common mallow of our road-sides, (Malva
sylvestris^) a plant which is found wild from
Europe to the north of India, is still used in
Hindostan for food. It is well known that at
the table of the ancient Romans, some kinds of
mallow were served up as vegetables. Not-
withstanding, however, that mallows have been,
and still are eaten, in many parts of the east,
yet, for various reasons, most of those writers
who are best acquainted with oriental botany,
have arrived at the conclusion, that the plant

MAY. 77

named in Scripture, and which is rendered
mallow in our version, is not referable to one
of the mallow tribe. The patriarch, when
describing the former straits and necessities of
some, who now when sorrow had fallen on him,
prided themselves on their worldly prosperity,
says, They " cut up mallows by the bushes."*
Authors have arrived at various conclusions
as to the plant intended. The Scripture word
malluachy is thought to denote a saltish plant,
and several herbs whose ashes contain soda,
have been adduced by writers. The learned
Bochart is of opinion that a shrubby species of
orache, or atriplex, is intended; another sug-
gests that it may be a species of fig-marigold ;
while a third considers it to be the Jews'
mallow, {Cor chorus olitorius,) which is planted
in great quantity in the neighbourhood of
Aleppo for food, and of which the Jews boil
the leaves to eat with their meat. It is well
for us that we do not live in those times when
such discussions would render us liable to
ecclesiastical censure, and that we need not
fear such blame as St. Augustine denounced
upon a bishop of his times, who having, as
he considered, wrongly translated the name of
a plant mentioned by the apostle John, was
declared to be "a falsifier of the Holy Scrip-
ture." Still it is most important that we rightly
discern the correct rendering of the inspired
word.

Many of our common garden mallows

* Job xxx. 4.

78 GARDEN FLOWERS.

produce, in autumn, very beautiful specimens
of skeleton leaves and calyxes, the green parts
having withered away, and left bare the bundles
of vessels which form the framework. Of the
macerated fibres of some of these plants, a cloth
and stuff have been made, superior eveii to
those made of flax. This is the case especially
with the ivy-leaved mallow, (Malva manritiana,)
whose pink flowers are sometimes found in
English gardens, and were brought from the
south of Europe. The curled mallow {Malva
crispa) of Syria, and the Peruvian mallow,
{Malva Peruviana,) both of which are cultivated
in England, have been used for the same pur-
pose. The former species was once planted
in kitchen gardens for food. It affords re-
markably strong fibres, wrhich have been
manufactured, not only into thread for spinning,
but also into cordage for vessels. The French
chemist, De Lisle, gave great attention to the
mallows, and recommended that the fibres of
various kinds should be used instead of rags in
making paper. So interested was he in this
project, that he had a volume printed on paper
made wholly of the fibre of the mallow, and
presented it to "L'Academie des Sciences."
But the members of the academy, while they
admired the skill and science of the experiment,
did not consider the mallow paper as likely to
be generally useful.

These plants, boiled as food, were formerly
considered so wholesome, that Horace commends
them for their salutary properties. They were

MAY. 79

eaten by the Romans and Greeks with lettuce^
and " were used," says Baxter, " to decorate
the graves of our ancestors." " So indispen-
sable," adds this writer, "were they deemed
to each domicile of the living, that as a matter
of ill omen, the poet exclaims : —

1 Alas when mallows in the garden die ! ' "

This planting the grave with flowers was al-
luded to not only by profane writers, but may
also be inferred from the Scripture. Job spoke
of the clods of the valley which should be
sweet about him. This beautiful practice, of
high antiquity, is supposed to have originated
in the belief of the resurrection of the body,
a doctrine, which, if not so plainly taught in
the Old as in the New Testament, yet is in
various passages plainly indicated in the former
part of the volume. " Thy dead men shall live,
together with my dead body shall they arise.
Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust ; for thy
dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall
cast out her dead."* This was the promise
uttered by the evangelical Isaiah ; and the Rev.
Samuel Burder thinks that the custom of
decking the grave with flowers, was likely to
have its origin from this passage ; or, if prac-
tised earlier, suggests that this custom might
have been present to the mind of the prophet,
when, directed by the Holy Spirit, he thus
taught the consoling doctrine, that in the flesh
we shall see God.

* Isa. xxvi. 19.

80 GARDEN FLOWERS.

The plants termed lavatera, are very similar
to the mallows in general appearance. There
are some showy annual species common in
gardens, and the shrubby kinds are very
ornamental. The species which is most gene-
rally cultivated is the sea-side lavatera, (Lava-
tera maritima,) which is a native of Spain and
the south of France, and will bear the open
air of this country if slightly guarded from
frost. The tree -mallow (Lavatera arborea) has
a magnificent appearance when covered with,
its large purple rose-coloured flowers.

The beautiful delicate flowers of the large
number of exotic heaths are, during this and
the next month, unfolding their bells on their
brittle stems, and the greenhouse is quite gay
with their flowers. They are, with few excep-
tions, natives of the Cape of Good Hope, where
they grow chiefly on the tops and sides of
mountains, and in the crevices of rocks. This
genus of flowers is quite of modern introduction
into this country. Miller, in 1768, enumerates
but five species. They are now very numerous.
%i Till the latter end of last century," says
Loudon, " this genus consisted of three or four
humble British shrubs, and the heath of Spain,
(Erica Mediterranean a slow-growing tree ; but
when the Cape of Good Hope fell into the
hands of the British, collectors were sent out,
and soon brought to light some hundreds of
species. It may serve as an easily recollected
date, to say, that all of them were sent home
during the reign of George in. Some of the

MAY. 81

heaths are very fragrant, and our common
British heaths are, as well as the exotics, very
beautiful flowers.

' Sometimes with bells like amethysts, and then
Paler and shaded like the maiden's cheek
With gradual blushes ;— other while, as white
As rime that hangs upon the frozen spray.'

These bear the bleakest winds of the moor-
lands, and all heaths, growing as they do, when
wild, on open lands, require so much air and
light, that, as has been said of them, ' it may
be taken as a proverb, that heaths like to feel
the wind between every leaf.' "

The andromedas, some of which blossom in
this month, are very similar to the heaths, and
are very ornamental little plants, or low ever-
green shrubs, chiefly natives of North America.
Several of them grow wild in Lapland. The
moss-like species, (Andromeda hypnoides,) which
has the appearance of a beautiful moss, spreads
over immense tracts of ground on the higher
regions of Lapland, adorning them with its red
blossoms, which, with many other lovely blooms,
thicken their surfaces, and are included by the
Laplanders under the general name of ren-
blomster, or reindeer flowers, as that animal
feeds on the pasturage where they grow. The
marsh species (Andromeda polifolia) is a native
of some parts of Great Britain, and is the most
common in the garden. Linnaeus found it in
Sweden, and names it as decorating the marshy
grounds during summer, in the most agreeable
manner. The flowers he describes as of a

82 CARDEN FLOWERS.

briglit red colour before expansion, and when
full grown of a flesh colour. Scarcely any
painter's art can, he says, so happily imitate
the beauty of a fine complexion. This great
botanist portrays in a very interesting manner,
in his " Flora Lapponica," his discovery of an-
other species, (Andromeda tetragond) which he
found on the celebrated mountain Wallivari, in
the district of Lulea. " Whilst I was walking
quickly along, facing the cold wind, at midnight, if
I may call it night, when the sun was shining
without setting at all, still anxiously inquiring
of my interpreter how near I was to a Lapland
dwelling, which I had for two hours been ex-
pecting, though I knew not its precise situation,
casting my eager eyes around me in all direc-
tions, I perceived as it were the shadow of this
plant, but did not stop to examine it, taking it for
the empetrum, (Crow-berry.} But after going
a few steps farther, an idea of its being some-
thing I was unacquainted with, came across
my mind, and I turned back, when I should
have again taken it for the empetrum, had not
its greater height caused me to consider it with
more attention. I know not what it is that so
deceives the sight on our Alps, during night,
as to render objects far less distinct than in the
middle of the day, though the sun shines
equally bright. The sun being near the horizon,
spreads its rays in such a horizontal direction,
that a hat can scarcely protect our eyes ; besides,
the shadows of plants are so infinitely extended,
and so confounded with each other, from the

MAY. 83

tremulous agitation caused by the blustering
winds, that objects, very different in them-
selves, are scarcely to be distinguished from
each other." Linnaeus describes the flower as
shaped like a lily of the valley, but with five
sharper divisions. Barren and dreary as are
some lands in the north of Europe, yet many
beautiful flowers are found on their hills, or in
their dark pine forests. Linnseus speaks with
rapture of the verdure and flowers of his native
land, and Olaus Eudbeck was so well satisfied
with its beauty, that, instead of thinking that
the garden of Eden lay amid the palm-trees,
and the roses and jessamines of eastern lands,
he discovered that one part of Sweden had
certainly been the scene of the original Para-
dise.

And now the large dark purple bells of the
climbing cobaaa {Cobwa scandens) hang over
the trellis of the arbour, and its foliage helps to
cover the garden wall. The Mexicans, among
whom this handsome plant grows wild, call it
by a Spanish word, signifying the violet-bearing
ivy. It received its botanic name from Bar-
nardes Cobo, a Spanish Jesuit and naturalist of
the seventeenth century. It is very remark-
able for its rapid growth. Even in the open
air this is very striking ; while in a conserva-
tory, it has been known to increase in length,
two hundred feet in the course of a summer.
This was long the only species cultivated in
Great Britain; but in 1840, the seeds of two
others were sent to England from Mexico, by

84 GARDEN FLOWERS.

one of the collectors of plants for the London
Horticultural Society.

And now if the border be tolerably well
sheltered from the north and east winds, the
splendid tiger flower (Tigridia Pavonid) will
spread its handsome petals to the sunshine. Its
colours, so like the skin of a tiger, originated
its name, and this plant with its variety, (Tigri-
clia Pleona,) and the Tigridia conchiflora, are
among the most magnificent flowers of this
month. They are all natives of Mexico, and if
the bulbs are kept dry, they may remain in the
ground all the winter. Their tints are red and
orange, and their flowers very abundant, but
also very frail, lasting but a few hours. The
edging to the garden plots, which are composed
of thrift, are now very gay with the pink tufts
of blossom.

The box too has now its green flowers, so often
said to be poisonous to the bee which sucks
their nectar, and it is a far better plant for
the garden border than either thrift, Virginian
stock, or any other substituted for it. In addi-
tion to its being an evergreen, it is very hardy,
and when once a good edging is made, it will
last for many years, needing little attention
from the gardener, except the annual midsum-
mer clipping. If we wander through the de-
serted gardens of some ancient castle or man-
sion, whether in England or almost any other
part of Europe, where the flowers of the olden
time waved their petals to the summer wind,
we find some of their hardiest successors, as

MAY. 85

the wall-flower, the pansy, and the columbine.
And there too we see the wide box edgings,
planted by hands which have long since min-
gled in the dust, and their borders perhaps,
though they are not in such trim order, are
as healthy and as verdant as they were a cen-
tury ago, when the dwarf box was extolled for
" bordering up a knot," and was considered " a
marvellous fine ornament to a flower garden."
The species used by gardeners for this purpose
is the dwarf box, {Buxus sempervirens nana,)
being merely a variety of the hardy box tree
of our native woods, which too seems to have
been in the gardens of England from the earliest
period. It was formerly cut, especially by the
Romans, into those various figures in which
the gardeners of the olden times so much de-
lighted. Few of them apparently would have
agreed with Lord Bacon : " I, for my part," says
he, " do not like images cut out in juniper or
other garden stuffe; they be for children."
Modern taste, justly preferring the graceful
wildness of nature, rejects the custom of clip-
ping trees into the shapes of birds or animals,
or of cones and pyramids, yet the old yew or
box, which still retains its place on the terrace
of the ancient dwelling, has a charm of its own,
whispering to the heart of other days, and lead-
ing the mind to dwell on England in the olden
years, and to muse on the changes of things
and feelings, which time is ever making, as he
marches onwards to mingle into eternity.
The box grows wild, not only in England,

86 GARDEN FLOWERS.

but almost throughout Europe. It attains a
great height in Switzerland, and is abundant
in France. It is found too in America, and
many parts of Asia, growing wild on Mount
Caucasus, and extending even to the Hima-
layan mountains. On the slopes of the lofty
Lebanon its green stiff leaves exhibit them-
selves, when the sun has melted the snow from
its boughs. The names of various places in
our own land remind us, that it was even
much more general and abundant than it now
is. Boxley in Kent, Boxwell in Gloucester-
shire, and Boxhill in Surrey, were all named
from the quantity of this plant which was
formerly found in the neighbourhoods. The
ancients used its wood for musical instruments,
and Virgil mentions that it was often inlaid
with ivory. It is still of great value to the
turner and engraver on wood.

The box is often alluded to in Scripture.
In the beautiful description given by the
prophet Isaiah, of the glory of the latter days
of the church of God — a glory yet remaining
to be looked and longed for, we find the in-
spired writer declaring in the powerful imagery
of holy writ, that "the glory of Lebanon shall
come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the
box together, to beautify the place of my sanc-
tuary; and I will make the place of my feet
glorious."* The prophet also enumerates it
among the myrtle and other trees which are to
flourish in the waste places of the wilderness,

* Isaiah lx. 13.

MAY. 87

in those happy days, -when " the desert shall
rejoice and blossom as the rose." It is well
known now to the Arabs.

May and the three following months, are the
season at which the different species of the
evening primrose tribe make their appearance.
Only the yellow and white kinds truly deserve
the familiar name, but these seem to give wel-
come to a cloudy day, or to the evening
twilight, by opening just at the period when
other flowers are closing. The common even-
ing primrose (CEnothera biennis) expands its
pale yellow flowers at about six o'clock in the
evening. It was termed by Parkinson the
primrose of Virginia, and is now often called
evening star. Its roots are eaten in the same
way as olives, and make wine more agreeable,
thereby adding drunkenness to thirst. In
many countries the plant is cultivated for these
roots, which are boiled and eaten at table.
The great flowered species (Oenothera grandi-
flord) is delightfully fragrant. It was intro-
duced into England from America, by Dr. John
Fothergill, and has also pale yellow blossoms.

The evening primroses are annual, biennial,
or perennial plants, and there is a great variety
of them in common culture. The purple flow-
ered kinds, still called by gardeners Oenothera,
are by botanists now termed godetia: some of
them are showy tall plants, the handsomest of
which are the annuals, introduced from Cali-
fornia. Their colours are most brilliant when
grown in a poor soil.

88 GARDEN FLOWERS.

And now the garden bower is covered not
only with numerous sprays of green leaves,
but odours from the sweet-scented clematis
invite us to linger near it, though as yet the
sun is scarcely so warm as to make the shade
valuable. The commonest and most fragrant
garden species, is that called the sweet-scented
virgin's bower, (Clematis flammida,) which is
very similar in the appearance of its flowers to
the wild traveller's joy of our woods. This
plant is remarkably acrid in its nature, and
indeed some portion of acridity exists in every
species of the genus. Millar says of this, that
if a leaf be gathered on a hot day, and after
being bruised, be put to the nostrils, it has the
scent of a flame, and will produce in the per-
son who smells it the sensation of having been
scorched. The bruised leaves applied to the
skin, will also raise a blister on its surface.
The large-flowered species, (Clematis florida,)
with white flowers, is commonly admired ; and
the more hardy clematis azurea, with beautiful
violet blue flowers, though well fitted to bear
the open air, is still often found ornamenting
the conservatory. Some of the common spe-
cies are of a dark dull purple ; others bright
blue, or white ; while the evergreen virgin's
bower, (Clematis cirrhosay) which is a native of
Spain, has green flowers, which bloom very
early in the year, and a few have yellow blos-
soms. The common. Japan corchorus, (Kerria
Japonica,) which is still very generally called
by gardeners corchorus Japonicus, is a good

MAY. 89

flower, either for the shrubbery or garden, be-
cause it is seldom quite out of bloom ; but if the
winter be mild, has here and there a flower on
its branches, even to the season least favour-
able to vegetable beauty. Its yellow stars are
now in great profusion on the weak straggling
branches which reach over the sunny wall.
They are composed of rays, and round, like
dandelions or marigolds, but of a darker and
less brilliant colour, and the long notched and
deeply-veined pale green leaves, grow thinly
over the weak boughs. This plant is some-
times upright, being merely fastened to a stick ;
but it is much better adapted for covering the
garden or house wall. It grows wild in Japan,
and was named after Ker the botanical collector,
who, some years since, introduced into our
gardens several plants from China.

Some very pretty flowers of the ranunculus
genus are blooming on the border. There is
the common bachelor's button, {Ranunculus
acris flore plenoj) with its double yellow flowers,
which are to be seen in every garden, and
which is merely a variety, rendered double
by cultivation, of our wild flower, the acrid
crowfoot of the meadows. There are also the
pretty double blossoms of the white-flowered
bachelor's button, (Bammculus aconitifolius,) a
long-standing ornament of the British parterre,
but which in its native haunts, the high moun-
tains of Switzerland, rears its snowy flowers,
and varies the monotonous tints of ice and
snow with its dark green leaves. This flower

90 GARDEN FLOWERS.

is often called Fair Maid of France, and it has
been said it was so named by our gardeners,
because the French emigrants who were in this
country during the revolution were very fond
of the plant.

Some of the tall and showy asphodels are
conspicuous flowers in May and June. This
flower is commonly called king's spear or
king's rod ; the French term it, verge de Jacob,
or baton royal. The most ornamental species
are the yellow asphodel, (Asphodelus luteus,)
which grows wild in the fields of Sicily, and
now blossoms in our gardens ; and the upright
asphodel, {Asphodelus albus,) also blooming now
with its spike of white flowers, and which is
also common in the south of Europe. St.
Pierre quotes a touching inscription from an
ancient tomb, around which the hand of affec-
tion had planted the favourite flowers: "With-
out, I am surrounded with mallow and aspho-
del ; within, I am but a corpse :" and the corpse
to the ancients, was but the name of a decayed
and withered remains of what was once lovely,
and not, as with us, the seed of the more glo-
rious resurrection body which is sown in hope.

The yellow flower of the perennial adonis
(Adonis vernalis) deserves a place in any
garden. It begins to bloom as early as March,
and is still bright. It is a wild flower in many
parts of the continent of Europe, and especially
abundant on the countries on the shores of the
Mediterranean, and it is of very easy culture.
The dark crimson flowers of the flos adonis, or

MAY. 91

pheasant's eye (Adonis aiitumnalis) are equally
hardy. Tins last species is generally known
in France by the name of gontte de sang, and is
the flower fabled by ancient poets to have
sprung from the blood of Adonis, which, ac-
cording to their legends, had a wonderful
faculty of giving a red tinge to natural objects,
and was said to have coloured the river of
Lebanon, called Adonis, whose waters are red
from the soil over which it flows.

Common as the humblest flower of our
garden ground, is the columbine, (Aquilegia
vulgaris,} which sometimes grows also in our
native woods, and wears its hues of blue or
pink, or purple or white, at this pleasant
season. In the wild state it is generally blue,
and is called by country people, blue starry.
Our fathers fancied that the lion was fond of
it, and hence its old name of lierba leonis.
The double- flowered variety is almost as
general as the single flower. The prettiest of
the garden species is the Alpine columbine,
which also nods its head to the winds as they
rush through the valleys of the high Swiss
mountains. It has blue flowers tipped with
yellowish green, and is, probably, but a variety
of the common columbine.

A syrup is sometimes made for children of
the flowers of the columbine, but it has been
denounced by Linnaeus as highly dangerous;
and he even asserts it to have proved fatal to
children. This plant was called culverwort by
old writers.

92 GARDEN FLOWERS.

The paaony is now bursting forth into con-
spicuous beauty, with its red rose-like flowers.
The double red variety of the common paaony
(Pceonia officinalis) is that most frequently cul-
tivated ; but the double white and the delicate
blush-coloured, are by no means rare, and one
variety, the rose-scented, is sweetly fragrant.
The common species grows wild in China and
Siberia, as well as in various parts of Europe,
and is said to be very beautiful on Mount Ida.
The handsome flower called the Chinese tree-
paeony, (Pceonia moutan,) the flowers of which
expand during this month, and are, in the dif-
ferent varieties, of various tints, is sufficiently
hardy to bear the open air of our winters. The
most beautiful variety of the flower is the
single poppy-flowered tree-paaony, which has
large white petals with a dark purple mark at
the base. From its coming out of the ground
so early in the year, this plant is liable to be
injured by frosts, and, therefore, requires to be
planted in a sheltered part of the garden, where
it is not much exposed to the morning sun.
The tree-paaony is a cherished flower in China,
and is said to have been cultivated in the
Chinese gardens for fourteen hundred years. It
is believed to have been brought originally from
some of the mountains of that empire. A few
years since it was so choice a flower in this
country, that the price of a plant was six
guineas ; but it is now to be procured at a small
expense.

The more slender species of paaony (Pcconia

MAY. 93

edulis,) is much used by the Mongolian Tartars
as food. These people boil the roots in their
broth, and grind the seeds to a powder, which
they mix with their tea.

And now, if we wander through green lanes
white with hawthorn clusters, we find them
fragrant with the odours of the honeysuckle.
In the garden also,

" The creeping honeysuckle weaves
Its yellow horns and verdant leaves."

Our common kind (Caprifolium Perycly-
menum) is also called woodbine ; and this is
one of its oldest English names. Milton calls
it too by our common name : —

" I sate me down to watch upon a bank
With ivy canopied, and interwoven
And flaunting honeysuckle."

But besides that our lovely wilding flower is
often cherished in the garden, we have here
several other species. One of the most general
is the Italian honeysuckle, (Caprifolium I tali-
cum.) which throws its long branches luxuri-
antly over the hedges of southern Europe, and
a variety of which, called by gardeners the red
honeysuckle, is very beautiful.

Another very handsome and common garden
species is the trumpet honeysuckle, (Capri-
folium sempervirens,) which, though it equals,
or perhaps exceeds in beauty, any other of
the common kinds, yet wants their fragrance.
This elegant shrub is a native of North
America, and flowers very freely with us from
this month until August. The sweet and

94 GARDEN FLOWERS.

pretty plant called Chinese honeysuckle, and
the gold and silver honeysuckles, are much
more tender. They are natives of China, and
are among the many flowers on which the
Japanese "bestow so much regard. The bark
of most of the species is very astringent, and
that of one kind is used in China for dyeing
black.

The French term the honeysuckle moire
sanvage. Its old English names were suckling
and oaprifoly ; and with the Germans this
climber is so great a favourite, that they have
bestowed upon it at least a dozen familiar
names. Caprifolium is a poetic word used for
it by old botanists, because the leaf, or rather
stem, climbs over the high places where the
goat fears not to tread. It must be confessed
that this origin is rather remote ; but the word
chevre feuille, (goat leaf,) by which the pea-
santry of France often call the plant, has the
same origin.

And now those handsome plants the rose
bay or rhododendrons, come into blossom, and
deck both garden and shrubbery with their
handsome flowers and hard evergreen leaves.
Numerous kinds blossom during this and the
coming month, but by far the greater number
are varieties of the common species, (Rhodo-
dendron Ponticum,) which is found wild on the
coasts of the Black Sea, from the range of
Caucasus through Armenia and Georgia to the
western parts of Persia. This species grows in
moist woods, but not on high mountains, and

MAY. 95

is said to be that which, by the nectar in its
•flowers, poisoned the honey of Asia Minor,
though some writers ascribe this rather to a
species of azalea. Another hardy species, the
Catawba rhododendron, is very abundant in
America. Some species of rose bay are de-
scribed to be as abundant as the furze of our
native island, growing in clumps on the grassy
plain or hill, and, with their purple flowers,
gladdening many a dreary and lonely place.
Then we have several very pretty dwarf
species, hardly more than a foot high. Two of
these, the rusty-leaved rose bay, (Rhododendron
ferrugineum^) and the hairy kind, (Rhododen-
dron hirsutumy) with rose-coloured flowers,
abound on .the high mountains of Switzerland ;
and Dr. Gilly records the beauty of the rhodo-
dendrons in the interesting valleys of Piedmont.
In Dauphine they are very luxuriant and
beautiful ; and near the lofty summits of the
magnificent Alps, they bloom in profusion, and
are the highest woody plants of these regions,
terminating all vegetation but that of lowliest
herbs and mosses. To them the mountain
herdsman is often indebted for his only fuel,
and their branches crackle on the hearth of the
solitary chalet. The lofty trees gradually
diminish or dwindle near the heights of the
mountains. They will grow in the valleys
below, but cannot bear the snow-storm and
bleak hurricanes, which leave these plants
uninjured. And on the hills of some of these
Alps, the lonely Piedmontese, as he gathers

06 GARDEN FLOWERS.

them for his fire, or sits by its light, ponders
on the days when his fathers were rolled over
the craggy heights, to join the " noble army of
martyrs," because their enlightened spirits
forbade them to join in idol worship. The
white hares of the mountains, whose coats were
given them of the snowy colour to help them
to elude the pursuer, often feed on the hard
bark of these plants, when the severe weather
has covered up the green things of lower
growth, but the leaves and branches are
thought to be poisonous to animals in general.

Though a large number of the rhododen-
drons are American plants, in the warm
regions of Asia they are also often found in
great beauty, with crimson, purple, white, or
rose-coloured flowers. The Daurian species*
{Rhododendron Dauricwri) is almost peculiar to
the subalpine tracts of eastern Asia, and is
common in the pine woods. One of the most
beautiful plants in the British conservatory is
the Nepaul species, {Rhododendron arboreum,)
which is sometimes twenty feet high, with large
bunches of flowers, of a dark crimson or
scarlet hue, and the blossoms are so full of
liquid honey, that when the tree is shaken, it
falls down in showers. This species has large
leaves, with glossy under surface, as white as
silver, and has a variety with white wax-like
flowers. The name of rhododendron, taken
from the Greek, signifies rose and tree ; and
the French term it la rosage.

And now, when the clouds seem literally " to

MAY. 97

drop fatness," and the " little hills and pastures
to rejoice on every side," how sweet are the
odours from the flower-bed, on which the
gentle pattering of the rain- drops has just
been heard! Now it comes breathing from the
hawthorn, or the lilac, or more powerfully from
the honeysuckle, or the clustering flowers 01
the syringa, (Philadelphus coronarius.) This
plant is often called mock orange, not only from
its blossoms, so similar to the orange-flower
which the English bride selects as the fitting
ornament to the wedding attire, but because its
odour, though far more powerful, resembles
that of this blossom. The leaves have both the
scent and flavour of the cucumber. Cowper
admired its flowers among others of this month.

"Laburnum rich,
In streaming gold, syringa, ivory pure."

This plant is of easy culture and very general,
but its native place of growth is unknown. It
has been found in Italy, apparently wild, in
some uncultured lands, but not so far from the
villa, with its luxuriant garden, as to enable the
botanist to pronounce it indigenous to the soil.
A different species has been discovered on the
Himalayan mountains, growing at the height of
six or seven hundred feet, and it is thought
very probable that our common syringa may
exist still farther to the north-west, and that it
may be one of those plants which, some centu-
ries since, were introduced from Persia, into the
gardens of Italy and the other countries of
southern Europe.

98 GARDEN FLOWERS.

We have several other species in the garden,
resembling the common kind both in scent and
appearance. They are chiefly North American
shrubs. Those called the myrtle-leaved and
sweet syringa, are both natives of the thickets
of New Zealand. The young shoots of one of
them were made into a tea by the sailors of
Captain Cook's crew, and the infusion taken as
a remedy for some of those complaints engen-
dered by long voyages. It was, while fresh,
very pleasant to the taste. The dwarf variety
of the mock orange has been found in Carolina.

The garden persicaria (Polygonum orientate)
is a common flower, with its spike of dark red
blooms. From its bearing so well the smoke of
cities, it is often called London persicaria. It
was brought originally from the garden of the
monks of Mount Ararat, where it is cultivated,
not only as an ornament to the parterre, but
also for its medicinal properties. One or two
species of this plant are sown in china for dye-
ing cloth of a beautiful blue or green colour.
Another species yields a yellow dye, and. one of
the strongest astringents of the vegetable king-
dom is yielded by some plants of this genus.
The roots of several kinds are eaten in Lapland
and Tartary ; and about the neighbourhood of
Manchester the young leaves and shoots of
one wild species, termed patience dock, are
boiled and eaten as food.

The dark blue flowers of the common monks-
hood {Aconitum napellus) ought not to be wel-
comed in the garden, as persons unacquainted

MAY. 99

with- their properties frequently bind them up
with the nosegay, and their scent is very dele-
terious. Linnasus says that the leaves, are fatal
to many animals, and mentions the case of their
poison, recorded in the Stockholm Acts, in
which a surgeon, little acquainted with the
nature of plants, prescribed the use of this as a
medicine to a patient. The invalid refused to
take it, and the medical adviser, in order to
convince his patient of the safety of the remedy,
took them himself, and fell a victim to his
experiment. Orfila states that the juice of the
leaves occasions death in a very short time ; and
the root of the plant is still more powerful;
while instances are on record, in which long
fainting fits have been the result of merely
smelling the flower. It would be well if this
poisonous plant were quite banished from the
garden, but gardeners should certainly be careful
not to throw it with other refuse, from the ground
into the public road, as the lives of children are
often thus endangered. This flower was for-
merly called purple helmet flower. The English
name of wolfsbane is given to some of the
genus. They grow on the lofty pastures of the
Swiss mountains, as well as on many other
mountainous regions of Europe and North
America. The roots, when pounded, are mixed
with food, to form a bait for wolves and other
animals. The yellow monkshood (Aconitum
anthora) is a more ornamental flower than the
purple kind, and a very pretty species ; the
hairy wolfsbane (Aconitum barlatum,) with pale
d2

100 GARDEN FLOWERS.

yellow flowers, a native of Siberia, is a frequent
i lower of the garden border.

The aconites are regarded as a highly poi-
sonous tribe of plants, but no other species, not
even the purple monkshood, can be compared
for its virulence to an Indian kind, (Aconitum
femv.) The root of this is the celebrated sub-
stance called bikhy or bish, and is a poison of
the most deadly nature. The great yellow
aconite, (Aconitum lycoctonam,) which grows
wild on the Alps, and is very common in Lap-
land, is said by Linnseus to be boiled and
eaten as greens in that country, but it cannot
be recommended. It grows in some districts of
Lapland, he tells us in his " Flora Lapponica,"
as commonly as heath or ling. It is called by
the Laplanders gislce, and not being eaten by
any kind of cattle, it thrives luxuriantly, and
increases in proportion as other herbs are
devoured. The wife of a clergyman of Lulea,
on whose accuracy the great botanist says he
could place the greatest dependence, assured
him that at a post-house where she dined, she
saw great quantities of this aconite collected and
brought to table cooked as greens. As she
knew the plant to be used as a poison to flies,
she expressed some surprise that it should be
eaten. The maid-servant of the house, how-
ever, laughed at her fears, and told her it was
too good to be slighted.

Many very pretty species of stellaria, some
of them much like our common stitchwort,
adorn the garden beds at this season, and by

MAY. 101

their profusion of starry white flowers cover the
stones of the rockwork.

The rose acacia {Robinia hispida ?'0sea) is
now profusely flowering, and its long blushing
wreaths of flowers droop from among its light
sprays of leaves, rendering it a truly graceful
shrub. By persons unacquainted with flowers,
it is commonly called pink laburnum, as its
blossoms are formed like those of that tree. Its
roots require much room, so that it is an incon-
venient plant for a small plot, but no large
garden should be without its beauty. It is a
native of Carolina.

Several other beautiful species of the plant
called acacia are to be found in the garden,
while the locust-tree, or false acacia, {Ro-
binia pseudacctcia,) is very general, and lends
its shadow to the lawn, or hangs its pendent
blossoms in the shrubbery. Some of the Jesuit
missionaries gave to this plant its name of 'locust-
tree, from the mistaken idea that its seeds were
alluded to in Scripture, where the forerunner
of the Messiah is described as eating locusts
and wild honey. Its flowers are generally
either white or tinged with pink and purple,
but it is one of those trees which remain the
longest in spring, waiting to be clothed with
the verdant foliage; and this, as well as the
very brittle nature of its branches, which snap
and break away in the high winds of spring,
is a great disadvantage to its beauty. With us
it is more commonly a low than a very high
tree, but in the North American woods its

102 GARDEN FLOWER^.

brandies reach the height of a hundred feet.
It grows well in the neighbourhood of London,
and is, with the lilac and the laburnum, among
the commonest flowering trees in the gardens of
the villages around the metropolis. It is one
of the first trees which reached us from the
American forests, and it has always been valued
there for its hard and durable wood. Cattle
are very fond of the young shoots, and some
botanists have recommended the culture of the
plant for forage. Their nutriment is owing to
a saccharine principle, which exists also in the
roots. With us its flowers are ornamental, and
very pleasing by their fragrance, while the
natives of St. Domingo make from them a dis-
tilled liquor, said to have a very agreeable
flavour.

The false acacia has so long been termed
acacia, that it is often confounded with the true
plants of that name, which, however, are very
different in appearance. These latter flowers
are called in Australia by the general name of
wattles. More than three hundred kinds have
been introduced into England, but few species
remain in culture. The greater number of
these are natives of New Holland ; they are
nearly all evergreens, and their flowers are little
yellow balls or tufts, like down. The gum
arabic of commerce is derived from the acacia
vera, a plant found in every part of Africa. In
our country they nearly all require to be
treated as greenhouse plants, and several are
commonly planted in pots and kept in rooms.

MAY. 103

The author of " The Picture of Australia" re-
marks, that the acacias in all their varieties are
very elegant, and says that " they are among the
few plants in the Australian forest which an
European would be disposed to consider orna-
mental. There are more than one hundred
species scattered over Australia, and of these a
considerable number belong to the leafless kind.
Their flowers are very beautiful, and the leaf-
less variety is probably not found in any other
part of the world."

Some pretty species of the flower called
lousewort, are now opening in gardens, but
they mostly require considerable care in their
culture. Their leaves are cut into fine segments
like those of our wild kinds ; and their flowers
are chiefly pink or purple, but sometimes yel-
low. When the white, red, and yellow colours
mingle in their blossoms, they are said by
Loudon to give to the flower the tints of flames
of fire. They generally grow on very elevated
situations, and are found more than a thousand
toises above the level of the sea. Notwith-
standing their acridity the mountain goats browse
on them in the pastures where they are plentiful.
One species of this plant will not grow in the
English garden, though some pains have been
taken to raise it from seeds sent from the north
of Europe to the botanic garden of Cambridge.
It was a flower which much interested Linnaeus
and other Swedish botanists. This is the
flower called Charles's sceptre, (Pedicularis
sceptrum Carolinwn,) a name given to it by

104 GARDEN FLOWERS.

Kudbeck, in 1697, in honour of Charles xn. of
Sweden. This monarch having visited Tornea
to observe the appearance of the solstitial sun
above the horizon at midnight, was so struck
with the beauty of the plant, that he carried it
about in his hand. Its large golden flowers,
with ruby lips, are described as rising in tiers
one above another, to the height of four or five
feet from the ground. It is abundant in
Norway, and found in Lapland, though less
luxuriant in the latter country.

By the latter end of this month one of the
gayest of our garden flowers, the escholtzia, is
expanding its large yellow or orange-coloured
upright bells. It was, at its first introduction
into this country, termed Californian poppy.
This flower is, among several others, included
by gardeners in the name of Californian annuals,
and they were brought from California, on the
north-west coast of America. Many of them
were sent home by the indefatigable botanical
collector, Douglas, who was sent out by the
Horticultural Society of London, and who, in
the enthusiastic pursuit of his object, lost his
life by falling into a bull pit. The escholtzia
lias pale sea-green leaves, covered with a fine
bloom ; and the flowers are very brilliant,
though destitute of fragrance. When the blos-
som opens, the calyx, or flower cup, instead of
gradually unfolding at the summit, like the
calyxes of flowers in general, separates at its
base from the flower, and conies off in the form
of an extinguisher. This is one of the most

JUNE. 105

hardy of the Califbrnian annuals; for though
these flowers bear the open air of our winters
well, yet they are generally liable to be injured
by the heat of our summers ; and if by any
accident their roots become exposed to the sun,
they will often die in the course of a few hours.

JUNE.

** The shining pansy, trimmed with golden lace ;
The tall topped lark-heels, feathered thick with flowers;
The woodbine, climbing o'er the door in bowers ;
The London tufts of many a mottled hue ;
The pale pink pea, and monkshood darkly blue;
The white and purple gillyflowers, that stay
Lingering in blossom summer half away;
The single blood walls, of a luscious smell,
Old-fashioned flowers which housewives love so well ;
The columbines, stone blue, or deep night brown,
Their honey-comb like blossoms hanging down ;
Each cottage garden's fond adopted child,
Though heaths still claim them, where they yet grow wild;
With marjoram knots, sweet briar, and ribbon grass,
And lavender, the choice of every lass." — Clare.

If from among the many flowers which deck
the June garden, we were bid to select one
which should seem its peculiar ornament, the
mind would involuntarily recur to the rose.

11 The roses laden with the breath of June,"

are now found both in the hedgerow of the lane,
and in the lowliest and richest garden. They
are ever favourite flowers, nor were they less so
in the olden time.

Many hundred years have passed since the
rose was first the theme of praise, and time, with
his many changes, has not deprived the queen of

d3

106 GARDEN FLOWERS.

flowers of her pre-eminence. In the east
generally, and in Persia especially, it points the
moral of the sage, and inspires the song of the
minstrel. Not only did Hafiz and Khusroo
sing of its beauty and odour, and tell how the
nightingale, " the bird of a thousand songs,"
utters her plaintive lament when it is gathered,
but even to the present day, the Persian song
would seem incomplete did it make no reference
to " the garden of Gul in its bloom."

It would be vain, in so small a volume as the
present, to attempt to enumerate the various
roses under culture in our country. More than
a hundred distinct species are known, and
about two thousand varieties are said to be the
objects of care to the British gardener. The
rose, in some one or other of its species, is a
wild flower in almost every country of the
northern hemisphere of the globe ; from Sweden
to northern Africa ; from Kamschatka to Ben-
gal ; and from Hudson's Bay to the lofty
mountains of Mexico : but neither South
America nor Australia can boast the rose-bush,
either on mountain height, or in deepest valley.
In the countries at the north of Europe, the
flower, in its wild state, is single, like our
wilding rose ; but in Italy, Spain, and Greece,
it is often double.

The two species of rose which were earliest
cultivated in the British garden, appear to be
the cabbage or Provence rose, and the musk
rose. The former {'Rosa centifolia,) is well
known by its numerous petals, closely folded

JUNE. 107

over each other, like the leaves of a cabbage.
Every cottage plot can show a bush of this
sweetest of roses. It was long thought to be a
native of France, but this seems doubtful. In
some low woods on the eastern parts of Cau-
casus, it is certainly wild, and its odour per-
fumes the air. Dr. Clarke speaks of its fra-
grance and profusion in the isle of Rhodes.
Upwards of seventy kinds of this rose only, are
under culture, and our pretty moss roses, which
blush so beautifully from under their verdant
mossy veil, are varieties of the Provence rose.
It is remarkable of these flowers, that, when
removed to the milder atmosphere of southern
Europe, they lose the mossy covering, which
seems so suited, in our climate, to preserve the
delicate young bud from the morning or even-
ing chills. The cabbage rose is planted both
in England and France for the sake of its petals,
which are gathered, when fully blown, for
making rose water, and also for the conserve of
roses sold by the druggist.

The musk rose {Rosa moschata) is found
wild in the north of Africa, and the warmer
portions of Spain. It blooms in autumn, and
its musky odour is most powerful in the even-
ing. Its large bunches of flowers would weigh
down the slender branches, were they not sup-
ported. The kinds of musk rose are not nu-
merous,- as there are not above a dozen sorts.
This flower is thought to be the rose repre-
sented by the Persian poet as the delight of the
nightingale of the east, whose songs, sweet

108 GARDEN FLOWERS.

though they are to oriental ears, are described
by English travellers as far inferior to those of
our bird of night.

The French rose (fiosa Gallica) is also a
common flower in our gardens. It has large
open flat flowers, on stiff stalks. It grows wild
in some parts of France, and at Geneva ; and is
found in Austria and Piedmont. This rose is
easily scattered by the winds, and forms a
great contrast to the compact, closely-folded
cabbage rose. Though wild in France, it is
cultivated at the little town of Provins, and
also at Fontenay aux Roses, near Paris, for the
conserve made of its petals. The York and
Lancaster, with its flowers variegated with red
and white, is one of the varieties of the French
rose. It delighted our forefathers, by blooming
at a season when they deemed it an auspicious
token that the civil wars should cease, and the
union of the two emblematic roses, in the per-
sons of Henry vir. and Elizabeth of York,
should bring peace and happiness to the long
distracted nation. It is said that the significant
colours of red and white, were never, till this
period, seen united in the symbolic flower of
England, and great crowds went from the city
to witness this natural prodigy.

The damask rose too, (Bosa Damascena,) is
common with us, and if it is not a native of
the neighbourhood of Damascus, yet. it was
planted many centuries since in that ancient
city, whose name it bears ; and now, both in its
red and white varieties, it still decks the gar*

JUNE. 109

dens there. It appears to be, certainly, wild
in some parts of Syria. The Parisians are very
fond of this flower, and it is one which is most
commonly sold in their flower markets. The
French, indeed, prize the roses generally, and
it is an old custom in some villages of France,
to present, on a certain day in every year, a
rose to the cottage maiden who is thought, by
her conduct, to have merited the esteem of her
neighbours, and who for the following year is
termed la rosiere.

Then, too, we have the numerous varieties
of the delicate China, or monthly rose, (Rosa
indica,) which sometimes half cover the cottage
wall, or grace the bush of the town garden.
But the dim air of the city is not good for roses,
and even these look pale and sickly if compared
to the country flowers, while our yellow roses
will not thrive at all near the smoke of a
crowded neighbourhood. The most beautiful
of this family of roses are the tea-scented, or
noisette roses. The China rose grows wild
about Canton, in China.

The dark velvet petals of the Bourbon rose
(Rosa Bourboniana) render it much admired,
and its fragrance is remarkably sweet. We
have, too, some pretty roses, with their tiny
buds and little sprays of leaves, called the roses
de Meaux, and these are a variety of the cab-
bage rose. There are, besides, the white Scotch
roses, and the maiden's blush roses, and the
yellow double and single roses, and that lovely
kind of briar rose, called by the Italians, Rosa

110 GARDEN FLOWERS.

Perla, which blooms all Europe over, and which
awakened feelings of deep emotion in Eich,
when he saw it flowering wild in Koordistan,
just as it did in the hedges whence he had
gathered it near his home. But we must
pause in the list of the sweetest of flowers, and
leave unnoticed many others, familiar to those
who, like Eve, tend the plants, as Milton de-
scribes our first mother as doing in earth's
fairest garden.

" Veiled in a cloud of fragrance, where she stood
Half spied, so thick the roses blushing round
About her glowed ; oft stooping to support
Each flower of tender stalk, whose head, though gay,
Carnation, purple, azure, or specked with gold,
Hung drooping, unsustained."

The rose is much cultivated both in Egypt
and Syria. It is in many parts of the Holy
Land found wild in abundance, yet it is not so
general as to render it an object of so frequent
reference as the myrtle, the palm, and the
olive, which are far more widely distributed
in that country. There exists, however, a
tradition that the name of Syria is a cor-
ruption of Suristan, the land of roses, which it
was once called, from the profusion of a species
of rose termed Suri, that grew in some part of
the land.

Very beautiful yellow roses have been foun
flourishing among the ruins of Baalbec, an
the hills which lie on the road from Joppa to
Jerusalem, are still gay with the white or pink
rose. In the desert of St. John, the gardens of
the little village of that name abound with

JUNE. Ill

these flowers, and the bushes are described as
" forming small forests in the gardens." Burck-
hardt found roses in plenty among the ruins of
Bozra, beyond the river Jordan.

There seems little doubt that the isle of
Rhodes derived its name from Bhodos, the
Greek word for this flower, on account of its
lovely roses. Dr. Clarke speaks with delight
of the fragrant atmosphere of this island, and
says that, in addition to the odours of the rose,
every gale is scented with citron and orange
trees, and that numberless aromatic herbs ex-
hale at the same time such profuse fragrance,
that the whole atmosphere seems to be im-
pregnated with its spicy perfume. The pagan
writers said of this island, that Jupiter poured
on it a golden shower.

And now, when the sun shines brightly, the
eye is absolutely dazzled as it gazes on the
glowing flowers of the scarlet lychnis, {Lychnis
chalcedonica.) Pliny observes that this flower
was in his time called flammea, from its colour
so like to the flame of fire. He speaks of its
having been brought from Asia. It appears to
have been introduced hither from the Russian
gardens, in the year 1596, and it is generally
thought to have been sent into Europe from
Asia, during the period of the crusades. The
large clusters of this brilliant flower, growing
on a stem often three feet high, render it a
valuable addition to the garden. It blooms also
for three or four months. The white and
double-flowered varieties are equally handsome,

112 GARDEN FLOWERS.

and are much cultivated in Holland, but are
not so frequent in our gardens as the common
scarlet kind.

Two other very beautiful species of lychnis
are not rare. The red flowers of the Chinese
lychnis (Lychnis coronatd) are much valued
in China and Japan ; and the splendid lychnis
(Lychnis fulgens) is a native of Siberia. Both
plants are well worth the care which the gar-
dener must bestow on them during the frost.

Several smaller kinds of border flowers, as
the ragged robin, the pink bachelor's button,
and others, are species of lychnis ; and the
flowers termed catchfly are very nearly allied
to them. Of these we have a great number in
the garden, and several grow wild in our fields.
As Dr. Clarke observes, the weeds of one
country are the flowers of another ; " accord-
ingly * says he, in his account of Sweden,
" we found the common poppy and the night-
flowering catchfly cultivated with great care,
as ornaments of the little garden of the inn
where we rested."

More than seventy kinds of catchfly are in
British gardens, and they are all more or less
covered with a glutinous substance, which,
having a sweet taste, is attractive to insects,
and prevents their escape from the flower.
The old writers called the plant limewoort.
Lobels catchfly (Silene armerid) is common in
most gardens, and the clammy species, Silene
viscoscij well deserves its name.

The flowers of the two species of fraxinella

JUNE. 113

shoot up on tall branches, and the leaves, so
like those of the young sapling of the ash tree,
are very elegant. From this resemblance the
flower is termed fraxinella, or little ash. The
red species (Dictamnus fraxinella) has pale pink
flowers, marked with purple. These plants
have a number of small brownish red glands
on the flower stalks, which exude a viscid juice
of a resinous nature. When slightly rubbed, a
pleasant odour is diffused, like that of lemon-
peel ; and if the plant be wounded, the fragrance
is much more powerful. The resin from the
glands renders the plant very clammy to the
touch, and it is also inflammable. It is well
known that this plant may be lighted up by the
flame of a candle, but it is generally thought
that the light can be seen only during darkness.
On a fine summer evening in June, before even
the twilight had commenced, the writer of these
pages once tried the experiment. On holding
the light at about half an inch from the flower,
the vapour which it emitted took, fire, and a
beautiful blue flame ran over every part of the
plant, which was about three feet high. It
occupied about half a minute in its progress,
and the strong balsamic odour which at that
time arose from the plant, was almost over-
powering, and perfumed the air of the garden
for some distance. This same fraxinella
bloomed for days and even weeks after, and its
pink flowers and feathered foliage seemed as
fresh as before the flame had passed over them.
Both the red and the white species (Dictamnus

114 GARDEN FLOWERS.

albus) are natives of Germany. The root is
used in medicine, and contains a powerful
opiate. They are hardy perennial plants, and
will thrive in almost any situation, or on any
soil.

Sixty years since, the lovely tribe of fuchsias
were unknown in Great Britain, and now they
hang their crimson bells in our gardens, or
bloom among the flowers which deck the win-
dow-sill, smiling even in the dim atmosphere
of London, but looking greener and gayer in
the little garden-pot of the country cottage
parlour. We have now several species, and
many others will probably yet be brought from
the wild places of Peru and Chili. The most
interesting as well as the earliest introduced, is
the scarlet fuchsia, (Fuchsia "coccinea) which is
wild in Chili, and was brought into this country
and presented to the royal garden at Kew, in
1788 ; the remaining species of the genus not hav-
ing been introduced before 1823. This fuchsia
was long considered a very delicate plant, and
was kept in the greenhouse, and known only to
the rich ; but it is found to be so hardy as to
be now also the poor man's flower. The richly
coloured tints of its crimson calyx, and the
purple corolla within, rolled up like a ribbon,
enable the scarlet fuchsia to vie in beauty even
with the brighter scarlet of the splendid fuchsia
(Fuchsia fulgens) and others recently imported ;
while it is far superior in beauty to the pale flesh-
coloured and green varieties, now cherished by
the curious. The slender fuchsia, {Fuchsia

JUNE. 115

gracilis,) which is a crimson and purple flower,
is one of the best for the garden bed. It is a
handsome slender shrub, about four feet high ;
its leaves, like most of the fuchsias, veined with
red. This was introduced from Chili in 1823,
and though usually a shrub, may be trained to
a single stem. The smaller plant, the globe
fuchsia, (Fuchsia globosa,) is also very hardy.

The fuchsias were named after Leonard
Fuchs, a well-known German botanist, who
published some valuable works in the sixteenth
century. Their fruit is a dark berry, which
when ripe is agreeable to the taste. These
plants are often, wThen in the garden, five feet
high ; while in the greenhouse it is no uncom-
mon thing to see them nine or ten feet in height.

The French honeysuckle has long been an
ornament to our gardens. Parkinson, who
published his " Garden of Flowers " in 1596,
calls it the red satin flower, and the red-flow-
ered fitchling ; and adds, "some foolishly call
it the red or French honeysuckle." The nu-
merous species of hedysarum are all hardy
flowers, and one which grows wild in various
parts of Asia, the prickly-stemmed species,
(Hedysarum Alhagi,) is celebrated as being the
shrub which produces manna.

Many beautiful poppies are expanding their
crumpled petals to the sunshine, and though
their unpleasing odour renders them little
suited for nosegays, yet they are very brilliant
additions to the parterre. The brightest of
them all is the large scarlet eastern poppy,

116 GARDEN FILTERS.

{Papaver orientate,) which was first found by
Tournefort in Armenia, and soon dispersed
throughout Europe, by the seeds which he sent
to the Garden of Plants at Paris. It is of the
most dazzling colour, and on summer evenings
bright flashes of light have been seen to ema-
nate from its fire-coloured flowers. The large
bracted poppy {Papaver bracteatunx) is no less
splendid a plant, and is now very generally
cultivated. It is a native of Siberia.

Some pretty delicate poppies, called carnation
poppies, are in flower by the end of the month,
and continue blooming till August. So frail
are they, that it seems as if a shower or a rude
wrind would scatter them all away, yet, like the
delicate cobweb with which the spider en-
wreaths the hedges, the light shower of summer
only brightens them by its spangles, and the
soft wrinds only ruffle them to display their
beauty. Still, however, they are frail flowers,
even where all are frail ; and a long-continued
rain will so beat them down, that they cannot
rise after it. Sometimes they are like white
gauze; again they glow in brightest scarlet, or
deepest crimson ; or their white petals are
traced with a blush-coloured streak, or edged
with a rim of rose colour. These are all vari-
eties, produced by culture, from the common
poppy of our cornfield.

The yellow poppy, often called Norway poppy,
{Papaver nudicaule,) with its bright orange-co-
loured flowers, is very handsome, and has a sweet
fragrance. It is a native of Siberia and Russia.

JUNE. 117

And now the pretty minor convolvulus ( Con-
volvolus tricolor) is beginning to blow, and its
large cups of deep azure will soon cover the
branches. This species grows wild in southern
Europe, and the blossoms have usually rays
of white. Sometimes they are pure white or
blue, rayed with yellow in the centre. This
flower is not very similar to the climbing plant,
called by gardeners the major convolvulus,
(Ipomcea purpurea.) This, in its different vari-
eties, of purple, white, pink, or lilac, is a beau-
tiful American plant. In its native woods it is
very luxuriant, twining so among the branches
of the trees, and so mingling itself with its
neighbour plants, that the Americans term one
species of the flower " busy body." With us
it will sometimes climb ten feet high, but in
Jamaica its bells hang from the loftiest trees of
the forests. All the species are ornamental.
That known by the name of indigo convolvulus
(Ipomcea nil.) is of the clearest blue tint. The
Italians term it campana azurea, and as, unlike
the others of the convolulus tribe, it opens at
night, it has also the name in Italy, of Jior di
notte.

Many species of the ipomcea are to be found
in our hot- houses, and comparatively few can
bear the winter in the garden.

Our wild species of convolvulus are among
the most graceful plants of the hedges, and so
also are other species in the hedgerows of Italy,
as well as in tropical lands. A beautiful
climber of this tribe, (Qi;amocUt angulatctj)

118 GARDEN FLOWERS.

produces, in the Mauritius, an immense pro-
fusion of scarlet flowers, which hang about the
shrubs, and render them so bright, that it has
obtained the name of fire-in-the-bush. The
scammony, the jalap, and other medicines are
the produce of plants of the convolvulus tribe,
and the sweet potato (Convolvolus batata) is a
well-known food in tropical countries. Back-
house, when in the Mauritius, saw some of the
poor people collecting the long stems of this
plant, and binding them together in bundles.
This formed a simple net, which, when thrown
into the sea, and presently drawn ashore, was
full of small fishes. The stems extended many
yards along the sandy coast, and produced a
very pretty convolvulus flower in great abun-
dance.

The various kinds of nasturtium, or Indian
cress, make a great show in the garden. Lin-
naeus named the flower from tropceum, a trophy,
because of its helmet-like shape, and because,
like too many of the trophies of man, it wore
the dark red stain of blood. The round leaf,
too, is like a buckler. The French term the
flower la capucine, and the Italians, caprivola.
Until the year 1823, two kinds of nasturtium
only were known in this country. These were
the large and small-flowered common species ;
and owing to the more showy flowers of the
larger kind, the smaller has been little culti-
vated. Several varieties have, of late years,
been raised from seed, and one of the most
handsome and generally known is the dark red-

JUNE. 119

brown nasturtium, (Tropceolum major atrosan-
guineum.) A flower which, until the last few
years, was deemed unfit for the open air, is now
a common and beautiful climber on the wire or
trellis-work of the garden. This is the canary-
bird flower, {Tropceolum peregrinum,) the little
delicate fringed flowerets of which seem ho-
vering over the green sprays, as if some pale
yellow bird were alighting there beneath their
chequered shadows. The nasturtium is quite
a Peruvian genus. The flowers of our common
species are sometimes eaten as salad, and both
these and the young succulent leaves and shoots
have a pungent property, which renders them
very wholesome. The seeds are very com-
monly pickled and used instead of capers.

During this and the two following months,
the plants called slipper wort, but more gene-
rally known by their botanical name of Calce-
olaria, are either flowering in the greenhouse
or on the garden plot. They are half hardy
plants, requiring care in the winter. The
greater number have yellow blossoms, and in
all, the lower lip of the flower is inflated like a
bag, and the form of the whole suggests the
idea of a slipper. A few of the species have
purple or pink flowers, and sometimes the dark
brown tint mingles with the yellow, as in the
common wallflower, or they are of a dark rich
brown. The different species grow as wild
flowers in almost every variety of climate,
owing to the various elevations on which they
are found . The whole family are nati ves of South

120 GARDEN FLOWERS.

America, and abound, either on the western
side of the Cordilleras, or the southern parts of
the continent, or in the contiguous islands.
Some grow at such a height on the Andes, that
their yellow flowers vary the somewhat mono-
tonous tint of grey lichens and green mosses
which are found in these elevated regions ;
while some smile among the flowers of the low-
liest valleys. In Chili, and on the mountains
of Peru, they grow in thick profusion, so that
they are said to give a peculiar character to the
vegetation. In 1820, six species only were
known out of the number now to be found in
Britain. The species most common in gardens,
and the most hardy, is the little shrubby rugose
slipperwort, (Calceolaria rugosa.)

Several pretty kinds of veronica, with blue
or white flowers, all in some degree resembling
the wild speedwells of our meadows, are blowing
in the gardens in the month of June, while the
eye is almost unable to gaze on the bright scar-
let patches of the vervain, which now cluster
in glowing colour. These flowers are better
known by their name of verbena, and though
the botanist may perceive that they bear much
resemblance to our wild vervain, yet the
unpractised eye might not discern the resem-
blance. The scarlet species, ( Verbena atrosan-
guinea,) is the most intense in colour, and
absolutely pains the eye by its brightness ; but
the most common species, the scarlet verbena,
is, in some of its varieties, little less brilliant
than this. Several of the species have purple

JUKE. 121

flowers ; some pale lilac, or rose-coloured, or
white. These flowers are chiefly natives of
North or South America.

The shrub generally called sweet-scented
verbena, (Aloysia citriodora,) does not properly
belong to the vervain tribe. It has panicles of
small pale lilac flowers, and its highly fragrant
leaves are well known. This is a native of South
America, and tolerably hardy, requiring pro-
tection only when the frost is very severe.

The pea-shaped blossoms of the pink, blue,
white, and yellow lupins, are among our prettiest
and well-known border flowers. They are some
of the oldest annuals of the British garden.
The yellow kind, (Lupinus luteus,) is sweet
scented.

The great tree lupin, {Lupinus arboreus^)
when trained beside a wall, in a sheltered situa-
tion, will often grow six feet in height ; and
the changeable lupin {Lupinus mutabilis) is a
handsome plant, branching like a tree, and fre-
quently five feet high. The white lupin, (Lu-
pinus albus,) is much cultivated in the Levant,
and called fig-bean. Our small blue lupin is a
native of the south of Europe, and the common
yellow species grows wild in Sicily.

Among the sweet odours with which the air
of June is laden, there is perhaps scarcely any
more pleasant than that of the sweet scabious,
(Scabiosa atropurpurea.} This is the dark,
rich mulberry- coloured flower, often called
musk rose, and termed by the French, fleur de
veuve , and scabieuse des hides. It is an old

122 GARDEN FLOWERS.

ornament of our gardens, so old that we know
not whence it came originally, though it is ge-
nerally thought to be a native flower of some
part of India.

The lily, interesting to us by its historical
associations, and leading us by its very name
to think of the tender charge of our Saviour to
the trembling disciples, " Consider the lilies," —
the lily, the tall white lily, (Lilium candidum,)
may now be seen in its beauty and purity,
towering above all the other flowers ; and we
can say with Bernard Barton,

" Ye loftier lilies, bathed in morning dew
Of purity and innocence, renew
Each lovely thought."

Dr. Royle quotes Dr. Bowring's description
of a lily, which that writer terms the lily of
Palestine, and heard called Lilia Syriaca, and
which grew in great profusion about Galilee.
Yet our white lily is not likely to be the lily
of the field, or the lily of the Song of Solomon,
or the prophets of the older Scriptures. The
white lily is not known to exist as a wild
flower in Syria. None of the natives of Pales-
tine can give any account of. its growing wild
there, but it is cultivated in pots, and regarded
as a rare exotic. The fields of Palestine are,
however, full of liliaceous plants, and Sir J. E.
Smith and Dr. Kitto both consider that a
species of amaryllis was intended, the golden
flowers of which are common in fields of Pa-
lestine, or the Levant. Dr. Bowring plainly
indicates the scarlet martagon lily, which was in

JUNE. 123

former days called the Byzantium lily, and
which grows from the Adriatic to the Levant.
It is commonly called Turk's cap, or turn again
gentlemen, and is the Lilium chalcedonicum of
botanists. This species of lily is in flower
during this month in our gardens, and as it is
in bloom at the season when our Saviour spoke
his sermon on the mount, Dr. Royle concludes
that this is most probably the lily of the field,
of which the disciples were to learn a lesson of
faith, and this invests this flower with fresh in-
terest. The common white lily has been planted
from time immemorial in the English gardens,
and its mucilaginous roots boiled in milk form
an old remedy for wounds.

As long since as the days of Dioscorides, the
martagon lily has been known as a flower of
Asia, and he mentions its having been found at
Antioch, in Syria. The lily of the Old Testa-
ment has shared with the lily of the field, in
having a variety of flowers assigned as the lily
intended by the Hebrew name Shushan. The
violet, the rose, the jasmine, and many other
sweet flowers of the Holy Land, have been said
to be the lily. Whatever it may have been, it
was doubtless a flower much esteemed in the
east.

The sweet flowers of the white and purple
stocks are fragrant now. The old favourite red
or carmine stock, called queen's stock, (Mathi-
ola incana) is called by the French giroflee des
jar dins ; by the old writers, purple gilliflower.
Its rosettes are sometimes of a pale pink, or

121 GARDEN FLOWERS.

variegated hue. The Brompton stock is a
variety of this, and was probably improved by
the skill of some Brompton florist. The wild
flower, from which many botanists consider the
garden stock to have been derived, is, indeed, a
blossom very inferior in beauty to this, and few
would detect, in the small purple flower of our
sea-side cliffs, the parent of this beautiful orna-
ment of the cultivated ground. The annual, or
ten-week stock, is called by the French, la
violette d'ete. It is generally about two feet
high, with white, red, and variegated varieties,
both single and double. It grows on the cliffs
of southern Europe, and, like all the species,
flourishes best near the sea.

There are, besides, some cinnamon-coloured
stocks, and the night-blowing stock is of a dingy
brown. The bright pinkish lilac annual, called
Virginian stock, which is planted round the
garden bed, is not a species of this plant. It
grows wild in the Mediterranean isles, and is
called by the French, giroflee dt Mahon. Some
of our most beautiful stocks are reared from
seeds brought from Germany and Russia, and
are hence called German or Russian stocks.

Several species of campanula bloom now
from the various pretty little flowers, which,
with their blue and white bells, cover the rock-
work to the tall pyramidal campanula, or the
Canterbury bell, and throatwort. One of the
kinds frequently seen in gardens, is the peach-
leaved bell-flower, (Campanula persicifolia^ often
called paper flower, with blue and white spread-

JUNE. 125

ing blossoms. It grows wild in the south of
Europe. The fan-shaped branches of the pyra-
midal campanula, (Campanula pyramidalis,)
are thickly covered with their numerous blue
flowers, but more often grace the hall, or
window-seat, than the garden bed. The Can-
terbury bell and great throatwort are very
generally cultivated ; the latter is a native of
Europe, as well as of Japan, and some parts of
Asia. It is wild in some parts of Britain ; the
Scottish poet speaks of it, as growing on the
heath of his native land : —

" He laid him down
Where purple heath profusely strown,
And throatwort with its azure bell,
And moss, and thyme, his cushion swell."

The French call this species, la cloche. The
lesser Canterbury bell, (Campanula medium,)
is a native of Germany, but was by Gerarde
deemed a British flower.

Very beautiful are the blossoms of the
passion flower, (Passiflora catrulea,) which, with
its twining branches, and dark-green leaves,
now climbs over the front of the dwelling, or
the garden arbour. It is the only species
which is quite hardy. Its fruit ripens in
England, and is not unwholesome. It is a wild
flower of the American wood, climbing up to
the highest bough of the tall forest tree, and
hanging its rich festoons from one branch to
another. It is called by a name similar to our
familiar one, in most of the countries of Europe.
The Spaniards, when they first saw its flower,
regarded it as a token that the Indian should

126 GARDEN FLOWERS.

be converted to Christianity, for they fancied
that its several parts indicated the various
accompaniments of the crucifixion. In the five
anthers, the monks saw a resemblance to the
wounds on the body of our Lord ; the triple
style, they considered emblematic of the three
nails by which he was fixed to the cross ; the
central column, of the pillar to which he was
bound ; while the rays of the flower figured to
their minds the rays of light which the old
painters always represented as surrounding the
Saviour ; or were by some regarded as the sign
of the crown of thorns, which sinful man
placed around the brow of man's Kedeemer.
Exaggerated descriptions and figures of the
marvellous passion flower were soon circulated
throughout Europe ; and "there are cuts," says
Sir J. E. Smith, "to be found in some old
books, apparently drawn from descriptions,
like the hog in armour upon our signs, to
represent the rhinoceros, in which the flower is
made up of the very things themselves. "

The common passion flower grows very
rapidly. Its shoots are said, by Loudon, to
make fifteen feet in the summer. The fruit is
about as large as a mogul plum, but its flavour
is not agreeable. The species first cultivated
in Europe, was the rose-coloured passion
flower, which is a native of Virginia. All the
species are very handsome flowers, and their
fruits are much valued in tropical countries.

A very popular flower of this month is the
common sweet pea, (Laihyrus odoratus}) which

JUNE. 127

equals in fragrance almost any flower in the
British garden. Its butterfly-like blossoms
are streaked with white and red in the kind
called painted lady ; but another variety has
petals of a dark rich purple. Linnaeus says that
the pink and white sweet pea is to be found
in Sicily, while the purple kind grows wild in*
the magnificent hedges and woods of Ceylon.

The everlasting sweet pea (Lathyrits latifo-
lius^) is considered a wild flower of Great
Britain, but it is a doubtful native. Its large
rich blossoms, growing on stems sometimes
seven or eight feet high, add much to the
beauty of the shrubbery, while the still larger
flowers of the perennial pea (Lathy r us grandiflo-
rus,) are remarkably showy. Gerarde calls the
former kind, pease everlasting, tare everlasting,
and chickling.

A very pretty border annual is the Tangier
pea, (Lathyrus Tingitanns,) which is said to be a
native of Barbary. It is a tall-growing plant,
with small dark purplish brown flowers. The
light blue pea, now sometimes seen in gardens,
is a perennial plant, remarkable, not only for
the colour of its flowers, but also for its beau-
tiful foliage. It is to be regretted that it is
not more commonly cultivated.

The odour of the sweet pea, delicious as it is,
is injurious to a close apartment ; and an in-
stance occurred in France, in which a person,
owing to carrying a small bunch of these
flowers in the mouth, on a warm summer's
day, was seized with convulsions.

128 GARDEN FLOWERS.

Another sweetly fragrant flower is the com-
mon white jessamine, (Jasminam officinale?) It
is a very old garden flower, and Gerarde says,
in 1597, that it was in common use for covering
arbours. The white flowers are often used for
making a fragrant oil. Cowper well describes it :

u The jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets,
The deep dark green of whose unvarnished leaf
Makes more conspicuous, and illumines more
The bright profusion of her scattered stars."

A few, besides the common species, bear the
open air, but many jessamines require the hot-
house. The Italian yellow jessamine (Jasmi-
nnm humile,) is a border flower, and the curled
yellow jessamine, a native of Nepaul, growrs
well against walls. The sweet night-blowing
Arabian jessamine is most fragrant during
night. Its powerful fragrance renders it a fa-
vourite flower, both in the East and West
Indies. Loudon remarks of this plant, that it
grew in the Hampton Court garden at the close
of the seventeenth century, but being lost there,
it was known in Europe only in the garden of
the Grand Duke of Tuscany, at Pisa, where the
plant was placed under guard, that no cuttings
might be stolen.

But no species of the jasmine tribe is more
interesting than that called the tree of mourn-
ing, (Nyctanthus arbor tristis,) which, however,
requires to be grown in a stove in this country.
It is an Indian tree, and the Hindoo women
use its flowers to decorate their hair. It is
deliciously fragrant, the blossoms having the
scent of fresh honey, but the brightness of day

JUNE. 129

must have faded into the dim light of evening,
or the darkness of night, before they unfold, a
circumstance which makes this tree the fre-
quent allusion of the poet : —

u The timid jasmine buds that keep
Their odour to themselves all day ;
But when the sunlight dies away,
Let the delicious fragrance out
To every breeze that roams about.""

Both because of its blowing in darkness, and
from its ragged and melancholy appearance
when its flowers are withered, the plant re-
ceived its poetic name.

Some of the monkey flowers are showy orna-
ments of the borders. They bloom from early
spring, and several of them as late as August.
They are natives of North and South America,
and received their familiar name because the
front of the seed is curiously marked, and re-
sembles the face of a grinning monkey.
They are nearly all hardy flowers, and two
common species, the cardinal and the musk
monkey flowers (Mimulus cardhwlis, and Mi-
mulus moschata,) will bloom for many successive
summers without needing winter shelter.

The species called the gaping monkey flower,
was the earliest introduced, and was first culti-
vated in this country in 1759, and numerous
kinds are now in British gardens.

Our wild marjoram, so common on the
chalky hills, is often planted in gardens for its
fragrant flower, which is so delightful to the
bees. The Oregon territory is said to have
received its name from the abundance of

130 GARDEN FLOWERS.

marjoram which grows there, and which the
Spaniards term origano. The sweet or knotted
marjoram, (Origanum majorana,) cultivated for
seasoning dishes, is a native of Portugal. The
hop marjoram (Origanum dictamnus,) has pink
flowers, on green cones, something like those of
the hops : it is a native of Candia, and though
more frequently grown here in pots than on the
garden bed, is quite hardy. This plant is the
celebrated dittany of Crete of the ancient
writers. It clothes, in profusion, the rocks of
Candia. It is an excellent stomachic, and the
ancient physicians considered the air of Candia
especially healthful, on account of the fragrance
with which it is imbued by the marjoram. Its
balsamic odour is very lasting.

The tribe of larkspurs which now arise, of
almost every colour except yellow, the blue,
white, pink, and even scarlet larkspurs, have a
gay effect on the flower bed. The double lark-
spur has, however, a somewhat formal appear-
ance, and must, perhaps, yield in grace and
beauty to the more simple single blossom. It
is to the latter kind only that the familiar
name of larkspur can be applied, for the spur
becomes lost in the multiplied petals of the
double flower. The common blue larkspur
(Delphinium consolida,) grows wild almost
throughout Europe, and is very frequent in
some of the fields in Cambridgeshire. It is said
to be an ingredient in those cosmetics used by
French ladies, the frequent application of which
proves so destructive to the skin. These

JUNE. 131

flowers received their Latin name from their
resemblance to the imaginary dolphin, which,
with griffins and other strange animals, figure
in heraldic inscriptions. It was formerly called
also lark's heel or lark's foot. It is probably
from the sceptre-like appearance of the double
flower, that the Italians call it {Fior regio)
king's flower. It is an old inhabitant of the
British garden, and is mentioned by the herb-
alists of queen Elizabeth's time.

Far more beautiful than the common species,
are the handsome Siberian larkspurs, with tall
stems, dark green leaves, and deep blue flowers;
which, as Mrs. Loudon observes, seem to have
a metallic lustre, the hue of which resembles
that of silver that has been tarnished by fire.
These, both in their single and double varieties,
are now in bloom. The bee larkspur {Delphi-
nium intermedium) is also a flower of great
beauty, with blossoms of intense blue, and pe-
tals so curiously folded, that they present the
appearance of a bee or blue-bottle fly.

Another of the Californian annuals, which,
like the escholtzia, has of late years become
very common in gardens, is the clarkia, with
rose-coloured, white, or lilac flowers, of a very
singular shape : and the different kinds of
cistus are now very handsome and frequent
plants. There is the frail gum cistus, {Cistus
ladaniferus,) smiling for a day, with its white
petals, each ornamented with a dark crimson
spot at the centre. Both this and the many-
flowered gum cistus, {Cistus ledon,) furnish the
e2

132 GARDEN FLOWERS.

odoriferous drug termed ladarmm, so much
employed in the east. This ladanum is of old
repute, and is thought by many writers, to be
the substance called myrrh in Scripture.

But besides the gum cistus, we have a variety
of plants of this genus now in full flower.
There are several shrubs covered with blos-
soms, while clumps of lovely flowers of the
cistus kind, nod to every breath of wind which
ruffles the leaf. The pretty purple-flowered
species, (Cistus pu?*pureus,) is quite a popular
shrub from the south of Europe. This flower
blooms not only during this and the next
month, but, if the autumn be mild, will bloom
again at that period. The lower growing
cistuses, of orange, red, yellow, or other colours,
are often seen on the bed. The old writers
called the larger cistuses Rosa aljpinatmd Rosa
montana, while Parkinson terms them holly
roses. Several of the herbaceous species are
used as ornaments to the rock-work, and have
evergreen leaves. The different plants of this
genus were well known to our old botanists and
gardeners, and Gerarde mentions that, in his
day, there were thirty-eight kinds cultivated in
England. They are all natives of the southern
countries of Europe, where even if the win-
ter brings some chilly days, yet the summer
season is hot and dry. Their perfume exists
rather in their leaves and young buds, than in
the flowers. A beautiful greenhouse species,
the oblong-leaved cistus, (Cistus vaginatus,)
often grows five feet high, and has rose-coloured

JUNE. 133

flowers, sometimes as large as the monthly rose.
It is wild on the rocks of TenerifFe.

The flowering raspberry (Rubus odoratus) is
covered now with its large red flowers, and the
beautiful Californian bramble (Rubus spectabilis)
invites our attention, not only by its dark pur-
ple flowers, but by its sweet odour; while the
American raspberry looks among the bushes
and trees of the shrubbery like some bush
spattered with snow, from the abundance of its
"white single rose-like flowers. This last plant
is very plentiful among the bushes and trees of
the forests of the new world.

That very elegant plant the single-seeded
broom, (Spartium monospermum,) with its blos-
soms like snow-white butterflies, seated on its
long pliable branches, is now frequent in
gardens. It is a native of Portugal, and is said
by Osbeck to grow along the shores of Spain,
like the willow tree, as far as the flying sands
can reach. Few plants will thrive so well near
the ocean, and its roots are most useful in
binding down the sands ; while the swine which
frequent these shores, and the goats which
browse on the surrounding cliffs, seek some
relief from the scorching sun, beneath its
shadow. Its foliage, too, is much relished by
the latter animal, and the peasants make bas-
kets of the long twigs, in which they carry their
provisions to market for sale. It grows also in
Arabia and Syria, and along the sandy coasts of
Barbary.

The Spanish broom (Spartium junceum) is,

134 GARDEN FLOWERS.

as its name implies, a native of the same land
as the one-seeded species. Both in France and
Spain it is cultivated as fodder for sheep, and
its fibres are woven into a kind of cloth, and
still more often made into cordage. Its hand-
some flowers are often double, and are of the
same bright golden hue as the broom of our
heath lands, which Cowper describes as

" Yellow and bright, as bullion unalloyed.'

The handsome petunias, now so general, have
been but recently objects of culture in this
country. When first introduced they were
treated as greenhouse plants ; now some are
found to be quite hardy, and others, which must
be raised on a hot bed, may yet flower in the
open air. The petunia earliest brought to
England, was the white flower, {Petunia mjcta-
giniflora,) now so common in gardens and
flower-pots, and whose odour is so sweet in the
air of the summer evening. This is a native of
Brazil, whence it was brought in 1823. It was
thought to resemble the tobacco plant, and as
the " fragrant weed" of America is known in
Brazil by the name of petun, so this 'flower
gained its name. About seven years after the
introduction of the white species, the equally
common purple kind {Petunia violacea) was
brought from Buenos Ayres. Since that period
the British gardeners have produced from them
it great variety of flowers, of white, of all shades
of purple and red, and streaked with many
beautiful tints. The dwarf shrubby petunia,

JUNE. 135

which will thrive only in a greenhouse, i3 a
native of Panama.

The white and yellow prickly poppies are
now blowing freely. They are fit only for a
large garden bed, for their showy flowers and
spreading foliage occupy much room. The
yellow Mexican poppy (Argemone Mexicand) is
a most annoying weed in the West Indies,
springing up in the plantation, and attaining a
luxuriance of growth which it requires constant
care to check. Its fruit is something like a
fig, closely beset with prickles. It abounds in
a thick white juice, and contains seeds which
are said to be even more powerfully narcotic
than opium. *The thick juice, when exposed to
the air, becomes hard and yellow, and can
scarcely be distinguished from gamboge.

Besides the common fox-glove, we have
some other handsome species on the garden
bed. The yellow fox -glove {Digitalis ambigua)
grows wild on the hills of Switzerland, and is
less general than the smaller yellow species,
{Digitalis luteal) which is as common in the
woods of France and Germany, as is our purple
species with us. Then we have the iron fox-
glove, (Digitalis ferruginea,) which has short
globular bells of rust colour, and is common in
the countries at the south-east of Europe, and
also in many parts of Asia.

The handsome Madeira fox-glove {Digitalis
sceptrum) requires to be kept in the greenhouse
during winter. It grows wild in the woods of
Madeira, and when cultivated by florists in the

136 GARDEN FLOWERS.

neighbourhood of Ghent, has been known to
grow to the height of ten feet. It has large
yellow bells, sometimes varying to a bright
orange.

JULY.

u The cottage garden, most for use designed,
Is not of beauty destitute. The vine
Mantles the little casement, and the briar
Drops fragrant dew among the July flowers ;
And pansies rayed, and freaked with mottled pinks,
Grow among balm, and rosemary, and rue ;
There honeysuckles flaunt, and roses blow,
Almost uncultured — some with dark green leaves
Contrast their flowers of pure unsullied white ;
Others like velvet robes of regal state,*
Of richest crimson ; while in thorny moss
Enshrined and cradled, the most lovely wear
The hues of youthful beauty's glowing cheek."

Charlotte Smith.

How beautiful, in this season, are the dew-
drops which at morn and evening glitter on
half-opened flowers, or twinkle on every blade
of grass, or bestrew every leaf with their pearls!
Truly the dew of heaven, even if it brought not
with it the " fatness of earth,'7 would at least
delight the eye with its lustre. In our own
land we see the appropriateness of the numerous
comparisons which are made to the dew by the
inspired writers ; while in the hotter regions of
the earth, its greater copiousness renders them
still more striking. Some lands, like Egypt,
would not be habitable but for the dews, and
the driest deserts of earth are watered by the
dews of heaven. " Jle shall be as the c}ew

JULY, 137

unto Israel," said the prophet Hosea,* as he
foretold how the Spirit of God should again re-
vive the withered graces of the erring Israelites,
who might well be compared to dying flowers.
And when the psalmist would liken to some
natural object, the sweetness, and blessedness,
and cheering influence of brotherly affection, no
more fitting image could have been presented
to his mind by the Holy Spirit, than the dew
of Hermon, and the dews which descended on
the mountain of Zion.j* And while we look at
the dew on the flower, it would be well that we
remembered, that it has been likened to the
momentary feeling of goodness, which, though
lovely to look upon, was frail and transient;
leaving no trace of holiness upon the character,
more permanent than the drop which glitters
on the rosebud ; and that the glow of devotion,
which is soon drowned in the act and habit of
worldliness, is recorded by the angel of God, as
the morning cloud, or as the early dew, which
passeth away.

The sweet lavender {Lavandula spica) is
fragrant in the garden, and the cottage dame
will soon gather it to lay in her drawers among
her store of linen. It was named from lavare,
to wash, because the ancients used it in baths,
and the fragrant perfume which it yields in dis-
tillation, is both pleasant and useful. The flower
is called, in Provence, Vespic, and hence the
foreign oil of lavender is often termed oil of
spike. The lavender is found on the deserts

* Hos. xiv. 5. + Ps. cxxxiii. 3,

e3

138 GARDEN FLOWERS.

both of Asia and Africa, diffusing its most
welcome odour when little expected by the tra-
veller. It grows wild too in southern Europe.
In our gardens it is too well known to need
description, and it is still brought to market for
the purposes to which Shenstone describes his
school-mistress as applying it.

' And lavender, whose spikes of azure bloom,
Shall be erewhile in arid bundles bound,
To lurk amidst the labours of the loom,
And crown her kerchiefs clean, with mickle rare perfume."

Fields of lavender are cultivated at Mitcham,
and Henley-on-Thames, as well as in Kent,
for the oil of commerce. An ounce of oil is
said to be yielded by sixty ounces of the
blossoms.

There is no summer month from May to
September, in which we may not find some
species of phlox decking the garden. On the
prairies of America, as well as in the woods of
Canada, it grows to a great height, and is very
abundant ; but most of the purple kinds, like
many flowers of the American forest, are scent-
less. The large white-flowered or scented phlox
(Phlox suaveolens) is now, however, in bloom,
and has a very pleasant odour. A very pretty
variety of this species has pure white flowers,
with a pink star in the centre, gradually fading
as it approaches the edges.

All the species of these handsome border •
flowers are natives of America. The fine-
leaved phlox, (Phlox setacece,) with flesh-
coloured blossoms, and its snow-white variety,
are among the earliest blooming species. They

JULY. 139

are low trailing perennials, blooming in April
and May. The Canadian species has pale bine
flowers, and grows about a foot high ; and the
ovate phlox has purple flowers, and is, like the
former, a spring flower.

The panicled phlox (Phlox paniculatd) is
one of the most popular species. It is a tall
plant, sometimes four feet in height, with
numerous clustered flowers of pale lilac. This
flower is very conspicuous on the plains of
America. It has been an inhabitant of the
British garden for more than a hundred years,
and blooms in autumn.

And now that frail and beautiful flower, which
blooms but for one day, then droops and dies,
the lovely day lily, may be seen opening its
yellow vase to receive the dew-drops of the
morn. The French term it La belle cFunejour,
and some of their writers call it the asphodel
lily. Frail as it is, it is long ornamental to the
garden, for though one flower may die to-night,
yet to-morrow's sun shall gild another, and the
root will bloom for one or two months. Both
the yellow lily, (Hemerocallis flava,) and the
copper-coloured species, (Hemerocallis fulva,)
were known in England in queen Elizabeth's
time. The latter species is a native of the
Levant, and is a much taller flower than the
yellow kind, being sometimes four feet high.
The flowers generally called Japan lilies, are
natives of China and Japan. They bear the
open air well, and are handsome, and most of
them fragrant flowers. The blue Japan lily is

140 GARDEN FLOWERS.

quite hardy ; the white species require some
protection.

Several species of hibiscus are in bloom
during this and the next month. They are
very nearly allied to the mallow. The shrubby
kind, called Althaea frutex, (Hibiscus Syriacus,)
is very generally cultivated. A large number
of species of hibiscus are known to botanists,
and they are an interesting tribe of plants, not
only because of the beauty of their flowers, but
on account of the various uses to which they
are applied in the lands where they are native.
Abounding in the tropical regions, they are of
great value to the people of those lands, but
many of them, when transplanted to our country,
need protection from its climate. In the hotter
regions of the continent of Asia, in India and
Ceylon, some of the most beautiful species are
abundant. In Africa and South America they
are also wrild, and even in North America a few
are found: while in the West Indies, as well as
in other tropical islands, a great variety exist.
Like the mallow, they are remarkable both for
the mucilage which they contain, and for the
fibres which their stalks yield on maceration.
One species, the esculent hibiscus, called ochro,
in the West Indies, is cultivated as an esculent
vegetable, and is also used for thickening soups ;
but the English residents rarely like it as diet.
In France it is planted for the pods, which are
gathered while green, and either eaten in soups,
or pickled like capers, and they are often spiced
and made into a rich dish. In another species,

JULY. 141

the flower cups are of a deep red colour, and
are so acid that they are made into tarts. This
flower is in the East Indies called red sorrel;
while in the West India islands, the refreshing
acid is used to make a drink resembling
lemonade, which is much valued in the sugar
colonies. From the bark of this and other
species, the people of the Malabar coast manu-
facture, not only coarse cordage, but fine thread ;
while the acid leaves serve as a salad. Several
species are cultivated both for food and for the
manufacture of India matting ; while the seeds
of several are, in Hindostan, used as a. cordial
medicine, and in Arabia are mingled with the
coffee berry to heighten its flavour. Of one
species were made the whips with which the
slaves were beaten in the West Indies, ere
British justice had declared that all the subjects
of the British empire were a free people. The
leaves of some species yield a good blue dye.

The beautiful flower called China rose
hibiscus, (Hibiscus rosa Sinensis,) is a favourite
flower in the hot-houses of this country, and is
very common in China, where the plant grows
to a high tree. Its flowers also grace the hedges
at the Cape of Good Hope. It is one of the
flowers often represented in Chinese paintings,
on screens, and other articles of furniture. It
is chiefly from its rich petals that the thick
black substance is extracted, used instead of
blacking, and which, from the purposes to which
it is applied, has given to this flower, in its
native land, the name of shoe flower. With

142 GARDEN FLOWERS.

this colouring matter the women also blacken
their hair and eyebrows.

One of the very few plants of the hibiscus
tribe which is quite hardy, is the common
bladder ketmia, (Hibiscus trionum,) or Venice
mallow, sometimes called buff-coloured mallow,
from its flowers, which are also striped with
brown veins. It is a native of Italy and Austria,
and was called by the old writers, " Good night
at noon." If we are to believe Gerarde, how-
ever, still shorter than this name would imply,
is its little hour of beauty, for he says, " it opens
at eight in the morning, and closes again at
nine." Many persons who have had it in their
gardens have never seen it flower, for though it
is sometimes open so late as three o'clock in the
day, yet, unless the weather be clear and
bright, many days will pass by, and it will
remain folded up, waiting for the sunshine.

The common corn flag (Gladiolus communis)
is too tall a flower to be overlooked, and it has
a long spike of bells, of elegant shape and
bright pink colour. Several varieties of this
species are in cultivation, but some of the less
general kinds are more brilliant in colour. The
superb corn flag (Gladiolus cardinalis) has
rich scarlet flowers, spotted with white, and the
different orange - coloured species are very
showy. Almost all our garden gladioli are
natives of the Cape of Good Hope; but tliese
flowers are not limited to that part of Africa,
but are to be found scattered over the vast
deserts of that country. Backhouse describes

JULY. 143

one which he saw in CafFraria, which had dense
spikes of flowers, of a dingy hue, covered with
minute purple spots; and other travellers have
named them as blooming in all shades of yellow,
pink, and brown colours, among the brilliant
blossoms which enliven these arid lands. They
have bulbous roots and long sword-shaped
leaves ; the latter suggested their botanic name,
from gladius, a sword.

The common bladder senna (Colutea arbor-
escens) is a pretty shrub, now covered with its
clusters of butterfly-shaped yellow flowers ; nor
is it less ornamental in autumn, when its large
inflated pods stand thickly among its foliage.
It is remarkable as growing and flowering on
Mount Vesuvius, even on spots quite near to
the crater. It is wild in many parts of France,
and its leaves afford a grateful food to cattle.
Both seeds and leaves are used medicinally.
The smaller species, the oriental bladder senna,
(Colutea cruenta,) is a much prettier shrub than
this. Its flowers are of a reddish colour, and it
is a native of the Levant.

The blue commelina, (Commelina caelestis,) as
well as the other species of this flower, is a
native of South America. And very brilliant
is the tint of its blossoms, which are now open.
Far less showy are the flowers of the basil,
but the air is quite perfumed with the odours
of this plant. The blossoms are shaped like
those of the lavender, but are either purple or
white. The common sweet basil, (Ocymum
basilicum,) notwithstanding that its native soil

144 GARDEN FLOWERS.

is Persia or India, is a hardy annual. In Persia
the basil is planted on graves, and is a favourite
addition to the bouquet. Both in India and on
the continent of Europe it is much used as a
culinary aromatic plant. The Hindoos attach
a superstitious veneration to some of the species ;
they use them in religious ceremonies; and one
kind, known in Calcutta by the name of tootsy,
is much cultivated there. The ancient Greeks
held the strange superstition that this plant
flourished best when planted amid railings and
angry words ; and it seems strange, that as both
Greeks and Romans so highly prized its fragrance,
a malignant custom should have been connected
with it. In former days many persons in our
own land refused to plant it in their gardens,
from the absurd notion that smelling it infected
the brain, and that it produced scorpions. This
idea was so prevalent, that sir Thomas Browne
thought it worthy of his notice, and attempted
to refute it in his "Inquiry into Vulgar Errors,"
where he affirms that the Africans deemed it a
remedy against the bite of a scorpion, and that
if any one lias eaten basil he is safe from dan-
ger, should a scorpion inflict a wound. And
thus this learned writer displaces one error to
advance another.

Although the stately holly ock (Althcea rosea)
is too large a flower for the smaller garden, yet
on a large space of ground it well repays its
culture. It is said to be a native of China, and
is undoubtedly of eastern origin. The French
term it rose aV outre mer, and it was long known

JULY. 145

in this country as the outlandish rose. It was
well known to the ancients. Pliny describes it as
a rose growing on stalks, like the mallow. This,
as well as some other species of that plant, has
been cultivated for its fibres, from which thread
has been manufactured. Phillips states that, in
the year 1821, about two hundred and eighty
acres of land were planted with the common
holly ock, with the view of using the fibres of
the plant instead of those of hemp or flax, and
converting them into thread. It was discovered,
in the progress of the manufacture, that the plant
yields a fine blue colour, little inferior to indigo.

The common holryock is a biennial plant.
It sometimes attains the height of ten feet. Its
varieties are of many hues, from the bright
clear white, to the rich dark purple which gar-
deners call black. It is a native, not only of
the east, but of Siberia, and the southern coun-
tries of Europe ; and the single yellow hollyock
has been found wild in Africa.

That common, but handsome flower, the
French willow, (Epilobium angusti folium,) often
termed rose hay willow, is now very conspi-
cuous. It is, by its height, well fitted for the
shrubbery, but it is often seen, too, on the gar-
den bed. So far from requiring any culture,
it is a most troublesome flower in the garden ;
for the long pods which contain the seeds pro-
duce a great abundance, and each seed is
crowned with a tuft of down, which facilitates
its dispersion, so that the gardener finds con-
siderable trouble in eradicating the numerous

146 GARDEN FLOWERS.

young shoots. This flower is occasionally found
wild in Great Britain, and is a native of most
parts of Europe, from Lapland to Italy. In no
country, however, is it so luxuriant as in Lap-
land. Dr. Clarke says, that it there attains a
magnificence, compared with which it seems in
other lands but a stunted plant ; and adds,
that among the many gay flowers which decked
the river sides of that land, its gaudy blossoms
shone pre-eminently. Its high clusters of purple
lilac flowers acquire a prodigious size among
the rocks and stones. This traveller observes,
that it may be considered as the garland of
Lapland ; often attaining the greatest magni-
tude, when every other sign of vegetation di-
minishes. The Lapps call it almoke, and
among the inhabitants of Dalecarlia, the flower
is familiarly termed heaven's grass.

The French name this flower lanrier de St
Antoine. Its young shoots may be eaten, and
the pith, bitter as it is in its fresh state, becomes,
when dried, very sweet, and, by a certain pro-
cess, is made into ale ; while, by a farther pro-
cess, the Kamschatctales derive vinegar from
it. It is also used as fodder for cattle, and the
goat is glad to come to the cliffs by the river,
to eat its foliage. The great quantify of down
which exists in the pods, has been mixed with
fur or cotton, and made into stockings and other
articles of wearing apparel. The little red
Alpine willow herb is a pretty ornament for
rock- work, and several species are among our
wild flowers.

JULY. 147

A very pretty Oalifbrnian annual is now-
blooming. This is the shady nemophila, (Ne-
mophila pli ace lioides.) Its flower is of brightest
blue, and its name, taken from the Greek words,
to love, and shade, indicate that this genus is to
be found chiefly where trees and bushes cast
their shadow.

Among the many odours of this season, few
are more pleasant than that of the pinks, which
flowers are now in perfection. It was, perhaps,
for its fragrance, still more than for its
beauty, that the pink was called the divine
flower. The carnation (Dianthus caryophyllas)
is thought to have had its origin in the wild
clove pink of our land, and which also grows
on the Alps of Switzerland. At the commence-
ment of the eighteenth century, four hundred
varieties of the carnation were enumerated,
and their numbers are now increased. They
are all sweet and beautiful flowers, and their
leaves, which gardeners term grass, are, from
their evergreen nature, ornamental to the bed
in winter or early spring. The plant called
tree pink (Dianthus arboreus) is merely a kind
of carnation, with a woody stem, and its pink
flowers are found in the isles of Greece.

Many writers have considered the pink (Di-
anthus plumarius) as merely a variety of the
carnation ; and as it does not appear to be found
in a wild state, it is probably derived, if not
from the carnation, yet from some of the smaller
pinks, which grow wild in various countries.
Our native pinks are few, and chiefly inconspi-

148 GARDEN FLOWERS.

cuous flowers, but a great variety bloom in the
lands of southern Europe, and grow on the
mountains of Germany and Switzerland at a
great height. The kind of pink called laced
pinks, is that cultivated so much by florists,
and their flowers should be about two inches
and a half in diameter, with white petals,
rose-coloured edges, and a dark purple ring
in the centre. It does not appear that this
tribe of flowers was known to the ancients,
for no poet of Greece or Home has sung of
their perfume or beauty ; and they are not
mentioned by Pliny, or any other naturalist of
those distant ages.

The sweet-william (Dianthus barbatiis) is a
clustered species of pink, and is called by the
French, nosegay of pinks. It grows wild in
Germany, and also on the hills of Normandy,
but with much smaller flowers than it has in
our gardens.

The China pink, {Dianthus Chinensis,) which
seems neither exactly like a pink nor a sweet-
william, is of a beautiful red colour, each
blossom growing on a single stalk. It appears
to have been introduced from China, into our
gardens, about the middle of the last century.

The numerous species of groundsel have
among them a few handsome flowers. One
common and very ornamental species is now
in bloom. The purple ragwort, or jacobaea,
(Senecio elegans,) has sometimes double flowers,
of rich velvet surface, and beautiful dark hue.
It is a native of the Cape of Good Hope. One

JULY. 149

species, the hawk weed- leaved groundsel (Senecio
hieracifolius) is a most troublesome weed in
newly- cleared grounds of North America, and
is called by the Canadians hreweed, because it
springs up from the ashes of the clearing flame.
Its white flowers bloom in August. A yellow,
creeping - rooted kind, which grows wild in
Britain, (Senecio Sarracenicus,) was used by the
Saracens in the cure of wounds.

Some species of groundsel are found wTild in
every part of the world, but a great variety
exists in South Africa. Backhouse describes
the groundsels of the sandy deserts as of purple
or lilac, resembling those of our gardens. Hum-
boldt found this tribe very numerous in the
upper regions of the Andes, just below the
limits of eternal snows, " where the sun has
very little power, where hurricanes are inces-
sant, and not a tree is able to rear its head."

The greater number of those handsome
annual border flowers, the fair-eye, or coreop-
sis, are now common. The dyer's coreopsis
(Calliopsis bicolor) is one of the most popular
kinds. Its yellow flowers grow wild on the
borders of the Missouri, and have been used in
dyeing. The whorl-leaved coreopsis of North
America, (Calliopsis verticillata,) which is a tall
plant, often cultivated in our shrubberies, is in
bloom now, and for several months. The
colour contained in its flowers is used for dye-
ing cloth red.

Some of the species of sage which are now
so generally cultivated for their blossoms, are

150 GAEDEN FLOWERS.

blooming during this and the following months.
The well-known sage (Salvia officinalis) of the
kitchen garden, would give little idea of the
beauty of many of the exotic kinds of salvia
which thrive with us ; yet there is so much
similarity in all, not only in the shape of the
blossom, but in the wrinkled foliage and aro-
matic odour, that the sage plants are plainly
distinguished. Our common sage was formerly
in great repute as a medicine. Eating a quan-
tity of its leaves was supposed to avert sick-
ness,,, and hence the old Latin proverb, " How
can a man die that has sage in his garden ?"
The Chinese have a high opinion of the
virtues of the common sage, and prefer it
to the tea, whose stimulating properties are
deemed so refreshing in our land. Indeed, the
Dutch appear at one time to have been engaged
in a very profitable commerce, for it is said
that they carried a cargo of the sage leaf to
China, and returned to their own country
freighted with four times the quantity of tea.
But though the Chinese thus valued the sage,
yet they had a high opinion of their tea also,
as a remedy. So early as the ninth century,
travellers in China mention their custom of
drinking an infusion of the leaves of a plant,
which they termed sali, that was reputed as a
medicine for all diseases, and which is proved
to be the tea, which, from having been at first a
luxury, seems now to have become a necessary
article in the diet of an Englishman. With
us the sage is much used as a condiment

JULY. 151

for dishes. It grows wild in the south of
Europe.

There are between one and two hundred dis-
tinct species of sage in gardens, and the tints of
their blue, purple, scarlet, white, or yellow
flowers, are very bright. The apple-bearing
sage, (Salvia pomifera,) with large azure blos-
soms, is among the handsomest kinds. This
plant is subject to the puncture of an insect,
which produces excrescences as large as oak-
galls, and which contain an acid aromatic juice.
These apples are much valued as food in the
isle of Crete, where they are sold in the mar-
kets. Our common garden sage is also, in
that island, covered with these substances, and
they are called sage-apples. In all the Medi-
terranean isles, different kinds of sage are
abundant. Dr. Clarke observes, too, that they
flourish on the south coast of Crimea, and says
that there the sage of our kitchen garden is
the principal spontaneous production of the
rocks and mountains. He observed, that here,
as in the isles of the Archipelago, the sage
plants attained to a very considerable size,
being tall enough to be ranked as shrubs.

Several of our cultivated species are shrubs,
as is the case in the bright scarlet kind, termed
the shining-leaved salvia, (Salvia formosa,)
which is a native of Peru. Some lovely spe-
cies, as the tooth-leaved sage, have white flow-
ers. One of the most ornamental is the fulgid
sage, (Salvia splendens,) which is a native of
Mexico. The gold-flowered sage, a native of

152 GARDEN FLOWERS.

the Cape of Good Hope, has pale silvery leaves,
and deep yellow flowers, and blossoms from
spring to autumn.

The plants which we term clary, are also
species of sage, and are cultivated not so much
for their flowers, as for the deep red, purple, or
violet colour, which some of their young shoots
exhibit. The common clary, (Salvia sclareaj) a
native of Italy, has a most powerful odour, and
was once much used medicinally. Our common
wild clary (Salvia verbenaca) has a still stronger
fragrance, and is found in almost every land of the
globe. Its seeds contain a mucilaginous sub-
stance, which, if it be placed under the eyelid, en-
velopes any grain of dust which may have settled
on the eye, and brings it away. It was this which
gave the plants the name of clary or clear-eye.
A wine is made of the common clary, which,
when boiled with sugar, is said to have the
flavour of Frontignac, and is remarkable for its
narcotic qualities. This plant grows wild in
Syria, Italy, and Bithynia, and is one of the
exotic herbs of longest standing in the British
garden. Another species of salvia is used in
Holland, to flavour Rhenish wines.

And now the awning is spread to keep the
sun from injuring the full-blown ranunculus,
(Ranunculus Asialicus,) which glitters in every
colour of the rainbow, and is streaked with
each hue of nature. This is the month in
which florists usually display them in a mass,
and for this purpose they are planted late in
autumn ; but when planted in January, they

JULY. 153

will bloom at an earlier season. Indeed, they
may be made to flower at almost any part of
the year. On the culture of this florists' flower
much has been written. At the end of the last
century, more than eight hundred varieties had
been enumerated, and it would now be difficult
to ascertain their number. These lovely flow-
ers grow wild on the mountains of Persia, and
are significant emblems in the eastern bouquet.
They are very general in the Levant, and in
many parts of Palestine ; and, like our common
buttercups, which are species of ranunculus,
they have very acrimonious properties. The
Turks cultivated them in their gardens for
many centuries before they were known in the
other parts of Europe. Gerarde speaks of
them as common in his time, and says, they
flourish here, as well as in their own country.

The love of the marvellous, and the conse-
quent watchfulness for it, have so declined
in modern days, that the marvel of Peru
(Mirabilis jalapa,) now no longer excites any
degree of wonder. Gerarde thought it ought
to be called the wonder of the world, and its
changing hues, varying from white to red,
purple, or yellow, as well as the circumstance
of its opening at night, excited the astonish-
ment of the older botanists. This flower is not
a native of Peru only, but is also a common
wild flower in China and India, and grows both
in the West Indies and in Africa. Some of
the old writers called it the Mexican jasmine,
and the specific name was given to it from the

154 GARDEN FLOWERS.

idea that this plant yielded the true jalap of
commerce. The forked marvel of Peru is a
smaller flower, of a reddish purple colour. It
is called, in the West Indies, the four o'clock
flower, as it opens at that time of the day.
The white sweet-scented marvel of Peru ex-
pands only at night ; and its odour of musk is so
powerful, as to be disagreeable to many persons.
A large number of plants are blooming iu
the garden, of the genus Centaurea, with flow-
ers many of them something like thistles.
Two very common flowers, long included in
this genus, but now removed into another, are
the purple and yellow sultans. The purple
sultan (Amberboa moschata) grows wild in
corn-fields in the Levant, and is also a native
of Persia. Parkinson, who wrote his work in
1629, thus mentions it: "As a kind of corne-
flowers, I must needs adjoyne another stranger
of much beauty, and but lately obtained from
Constantinople ; where, because it is said the
great Turk, as we call him, saw it abroad,
liked it, and wore it himself, all his vassals
have had it in great regard, and it hath been
obtained from them, by some that have sent it
from these parts." He adds, that it was also
called the blackamoor's flower. The tint of
this sultan is purple, white, or flesh-colour, and
its odour of musk very strong. The French
term it fleur du grand seigneur.

The common yellow sultan (Amberboa sua-
veolens) has a much more pleasant fragrance,
but differs little, except in colour, from the

JULY. 155

purple kind, and is wild in the corn-fields of
the same countries.

The tall flower, termed yucca, or Adam's
needle, ( Yucca gloriosa,) with its pyramids of
large pendent bells, is now very conspicuous.
Its blossoms are greenish- white, and its ever-
green leaves, like those of the aloe, are long
and pointed. The natives of St. Domingo call
the plant yuca. It grows both in these islands
and on the continent of America. Its pointed
leaves have been compared to a needle ; but,
as Dr. Lindley observes, it better deserves the
name of needle and thread plant, for uby soak-
ing in water, the fibres of the leaves may be
separated from the pulp, without being torn
from the hard sharp point, so that when pro-
perly prepared, the leaves do really become
needles, ready provided with a skein of thread."
Two other hardy species of yucca are com-
monly cultivated in England. They flourish
well by the sea-side, and are very suitable
ornaments to the grounds of marine dwellings.

The dark rich velvet zinnias unfold their
stars. They are annuals. The red zinnia
{Zinnia multiflora,} is a native of North Ame-
rica, and its purple-red blossoms seem as if a
shower of gold had alighted on its petals. The
whorl -floweied zinnia, {Zinnia verticillata,)
and the elegant zinnia, {Zinnia elegans,) are
both wild flowers of Mexico. The former
species has double red blossoms, and the latter
has red flowers, which change as they decay,
to a- deep violet hue. The zinnias have very

156 GARDEN FLOWERS.

thick stems. They were named by Linnaeus, in
honour of John Godfrey Zinn, a German botanist.

Somewhat similar in colour to these flowers,
are the African and French marigolds ; but
the latter have been much longer in the British
garden. The very unpleasant odour of these
plants, is hardly compensated by the velvet
suit of yellow and brown in which they are
attired ; but one of the African marigolds
(2yagetes lucidd) has a pleasant fragrances.
Parkinson remarks of the flower, that it "smells
like a honeycomb, and has not that poysonful
scent of the other kinds."

The French marigold (Tagetes patuld) is
called in France petit ceillet d'Inde, but it is
not, as its name would import, a native either
of France or India. Both this and the African
marigold are cultivated in the gardens of
India, China, and Japan. This species has
great brilliance of colours, varying from a
bright yellow to a deep orange tint.

The Italians term these plants garofano
MessicanOy and also death flower, fior di morto.
All the species are American, and the Italian
names have both probably a reference to the
tradition which exists respecting them. It is
said that these flowers sprung up on grounds
on which had been spilled the blood of the
unfortunate Mexicans who fell victims to the
love of gold, and the thirst of power, which
induced the Spaniards to destroy these unof-
fending people. And truly has the Scripture
said, that " the love of money is the root of ail

JULY. 157

evil." The African marigolds appear to have
been introduced into this country about the
year 1573. They were named from a Greek
word, principality, on account of their splendid
and regal appearance. Some of the double
varieties of the French marigold are very hand-
some.

The variegated balsams, with their clear
succulent stems, and spikes of delicately-tinted
flowers, bloom in July. The balsam grows
wild in India, China, Japan, and the West
Indies, and is used in Cochin China by the
ladies, who make of its flowers an infusion,
with which to cleanse and perfume the hair.
The great attention paid by the females of the
east to personal decoration, renders this a
valued flower, for they tinge their nails with
the deep pink dye which its petals, when mixed
with alum-water, will furnish. The flowers are
white, red, or purple, or variegated and striped
with all these hues. Several of the species
throw their seeds, with considerable force, from
the seed-vessels.

Some very pretty grasses are admitted to the
parterre, and are now in flower. There is the
large quaking grass, or, as gardeners term it,
the hop grass, (Briza maxima,) so like the
pretty tothering grass of our fields, that every
one may know it. If the hop-like cones are
sucked, they are found to contain a sweet juice,
resembling that of the liquorice root. There
is also the tall reed-grass, looking almost
like a bamboo, which the Italians call garden

158 GARDEN FLOWERS.

cane, (Arundo donax,) and which they use for
fences, for supporting the graceful festoons of
the vine, or for fishing-rods. In Spain and
Portugal it forms an important part of com-
merce, being used in those countries in looms,
and for numerous purposes. The striped vari-
ety of this plant is well known by the name of
ribbon-grass, and in Scotland is called garden-
ers' garters. The roots of several species of
arundo are used in dyeing. And now as the
soft wind blows, and the beautiful plumes of
the feather-grass (Stipa pinnata) wave up and
down, we do not wonder that the Russian poet
celebrates it in his songs, and finds comparisons
to it in the movements of feminine gracefulness.
It grows freely on almost all the steppes of
Russia, and waves to the winds which play
around some alpine rocks of our native land.
Ladies of former days wore it as an ornament
to the hair, and it is now often used to adorn
the mantel-piece, but, unless gathered just be-
fore the seeds ripen, it will fall into shreds ; nor
can its beauty be long preserved under any
circumstances. A species of stipa is one of the
grasses so much used by the Spaniards, under
the general name of esparto.

The large handsome flowers and magnificent
foliage of the sweet-scented or Virginian to-
bacco plant, (Nicotian tabocum,} may be seen
in many gardens. The tubular flowers are of
a purplish rose-colour. It grows wild in the
West Indies, as well as in some countries of
America.

AUGUST. 159

AUGUST.

M A drowsy indolence now hangs on all ;
Each creature seeks someplace of rest, some shelter
From the oppressive heat: silence prevails,
Nor low, nor bark, nor chirp of bird is heard ;
In shady nooks the sheep and kine convene :
Within the narrow shadow of the cot
The sleepy dog lies stretched upon his side,
Nor heeds the footsteps of the passer by,
Or at the sound but raises half an eyelid,
Then gives a feeble growl and sleeps again:
No sound is heard but humming of the bee,
For she alone retires not from her labour,
Nor leaves a meadow flower unsought for gain."

Joanna Baillie.

If there is less variety in the flowers which
during this month expand afresh, yet there is
as great an amount of brilliant colouring in the
garden, as in the more prolific season of mid-
summer ; for dahlias, sun-flowers, and ama-
ranths, wear hues more deep and glowing than
the rose or lily of June. A magnificent flower
is the dahlia, and it is pleasant to think that its
culture affords an innocent recreation to many
a florist of humble life. The autumnal flower-
shows in which it is exhibited, give evidence
how wonderfully the skill of the florist has
improved the stately flower, which, when it
grows in its native land, is neither so bright
nor so beautifully formed, as the blossom to be
seen in the humblest garden. The dahlia
grows wild on the sandy plain, as well as on
the mountains of Mexico ; and was introduced
into Europe by the great naturalist Baron
Humboldt. He, in the year 1789, sent it to
Professor Cavanilles, of the Botanic Garden of
Madrid, who in that year presented it to the

1 60 GARDEN FLOWERS.

Marchioness of Bute. This lady kept it in the
greenhouse, and from this species {Dahlia va-
riabilis) nearly all the numerous varieties have
been obtained. In the field of Mexico it is a
single flower, not remarkable for the bright-
ness of its purple or lilac tint, and growing to
the height of about eight feet. Few flowers
vary more in colour when under cultivation,
and we have now the dark purple and rich-
est puce, with every shade of scarlet, crimson,
and pink ; while the dahlia of pure white,
or delicate yellow, grows beside others streaked
with the variegated hues of the tulip or ranun-
culus : though that great desire of florists has
not yet been fulfilled in any approach towards
a blue dahlia, nor is it often of unmingled
white. More than two hundred varieties have
been raised from the seeds of the common
purple flower.

In 1802, two other species of dahlia were
added to that already in the garden. They
were both procured from Mexican lands. The
barren, rugged dahlia, {Dahlia frustranea^) and
the scarlet flower, {Dahlia coccinea,) both, how-
ever, produce smaller blossoms and fewer va-
rieties ; and the variable dahlia, which was first
brought into our land, is still the favourite
flower of the florist. A species of recent intro-
duction, {Dahlia excelsa,) called the tree dahlia,
is said to attain, in Mexico, the height of
thirty feet, with a stem proportionably thick.

The Mexicans boil and eat the tuberous
roots of the dahlia ; but even could we spare

AUGUST. 161

them for such a purpose, they are not palatable
to European taste.

A handsome American plant is now equally
conspicuous on the parterre. This is the tall
and brilliant sunflower, (Helianthas annaus,)
which is a native flower of Peru and Mexico,
as well as of Canada, and several other parts of
North America. In the Canadian woods it
grows to a great height, and the blossom is as
large as a dinner plate. On the prairies, Catlin
observes of it, that it often taunted them by
striking against their faces, as they made their
weary way through the tall grass. Dr. E. D.
Clarke also saw it in abundance on the steppes
of Tahtary, growing very tall and large. The
ancient Peruvians, when found on their native
plains by the Spaniards, were worshippers of
the great natural light of day. They had
their temple of the sun, and the maidens who
officiated in* the service of their god, were
crowned with wreaths of sunflowers, made of
purest gold, while they wore on their breasts
similar emblems of the idol of their worship.
The holier faith professed by their conquerors,
as yet was not accompanied by that spirit of
love, and truth, and justice, which we who read
our Bibles know to be its sure fruit, but which
in times of papal darkness was understood but
by a few, and the sight of these golden orna^
ments, while they aroused their hatred of idolatry,
appealed but too surely to their covetousness.
And when, at a later season, the Spaniards saw
the fields bright with the same golden hue? and

162 GARDEN FLOWERS.

observed these magnificent flowers on hill
and valley, by wood and river side, Peru
must have seemed to them a land of glowing
gold.

The seeds of the sunflower are recommended
as an excellent food for cattle, and the settler
in the woods of Canada gathers and stores them
for a winter supply for his poultry. In the
United States the flowrer is cultivated to a great
extent for the oil procured from its seeds, which
is as good as Florence oil. The whole plant,
and especially the golden blossom, exudes a
thin, clear, resinous substance, the strong odour
of which resembles that of Venice turpentine.
The sunflower is not found wild in any part of
southern Europe, but in Asia and Africa a few
species are to be met with. Several double
varieties are cultivated in the garden.

The numerous clusters of the garden hydran-
gea (Hydrangea hortensia)bloom in the autumnal
season. This flower is often called the Chinese
guelder rose, as it is much cultivated in the
gardens of China, as well as in those of Japan,
but its native place of growth is unknown.
The flowers are usually of a pale rose colour,
but are sometimes blue. Great pains have been
taken by cultivators to discover under what
conditions of the soil the blue colour may be
insured. The yellow loam of Hampstead heath
will produce it, as does also the peat of the bogs
near Edinburgh, and the soil in the neighbour-
hoods of Berlin and of St. Petersburgh. Water
impregnated with alum, steel tilings, carbonate

AUGUST. 163

of soda, or common salt, has been known to
give the blue to the hydrangea ; but on no one
of these can any certain dependence be placed.
Inglis says that this tinge is very general in the
flowers of this plant in the isle of Jersey. The
hydrangea is there seen growing as a shrub at
every cottage door, or in one of those gardens
which are always planted by the houses of that
island. It is often twelve feet in circumference
and five in height, and is tall and branching
enough to form a shade, under which one might
find shelter from the sun of August. " These
beautiful shrubs," says Inglis, " here almost as
trees, form the avenues in the neighbourhood ;
and at the season in which they are covered with
their large blue flowers, the effect is indeed most
captivating. I have nowhere seen the hy-
drangea so luxuriant in growth as in the channel
islands, and the flowers are most commonly
blue, not pink, as we are accustomed to see
them in England."

As the different flowers, called everlasting
flowers, bloom during this and the two following
months, they may here be noticed together.
The yellow flower, called love everlasting, has
been long known to botanists as the eastern
everlasting, (Gnaphalium orientate,) but it is
now very generally included in the genus
helichrysum. It grows wild in abundance on
some of the mountains of Asia, and the pilgrims
who visit the flowery Carmel, and the lofty
Lebanon, gather it from their sunny slopes, as
memorials of their pilgrimage. Another kind

f2

164 GARDEN FLOWERS.

which has been introduced into England, the
blood everlasting, (Gnaphalium sangidneum,) is
generally gathered by those who, when tread-
ing the Mount of Olives, wish to carry thence
some record of a visit to so sacred a spot ; and
the durable nature of the chaffy petals of the
lowly floweret, render it a very suitable one.
Few flowers, indeed, preserve their beauty like
this, when brought from a warmer climate ; and
to these blossoms the description of the poet is
applicable —

**■ They look as infants do, who smile when dead."

A species of cudweed grows in great profu-
sion on the steppes of Tahtary, and the Cos-
sacks drink an infusion of its yellow flowers as
a cure for the jaundice.

The brilliant everlasting flowers, which, as
they have no English name, we must call by
their botanic one of helichrysum, are so named
from two Greek words signifying sun and gold.
They are chiefly natives of Africa, especially
of the southern parts of that continent. The
handsomest, as well as the hardiest kind, is
the waved-leaved species, {Helichrysum bracte-
atum,) which grows wild in New Holland.
This has yellow flowers. Some species are
white, and one beautiful kind has its flowers
tipped with pink, and is brought from the
colony of the Swan Eiver. Backhouse writes
thus of one species, which he saw at Cape
colony : " In the course of the day I walked to
the top of a hill, on which the helichrysum
prolife-rum, a beautiful crimson everlasting,

AUGUST. 165

was growing in profusion among low rocks and
ferruginous sandstone. The plants were about
the size of gooseberry-bushes, covered with
flowers, and as fine as I ever saw them, when
highly cultivated, in an English greenhouse.
This is not generally the case with wild shrubs ;
they are broken by storms and cattle, and
overgrown one by another, in the situations
where they grow naturally; but when culti-
vated, they are carefully protected from in-
jury."

Another genus of flowers called purple ever-
lasting, and whose blossoms retain their beauty
for many years, are the xeranthemums. They
are popular annuals, and their Greek name
signifies dry-flower. There are but few spe-
cies, and all are natives of southern Europe.
They are purple, red, or white, and one is yel-
low. Some of the species are small shrubs.
The flowers of all these kinds of everlasting,
when mingled together, form a beautiful and
permanent bouquet for the winter season.

A flower which is equally well entitled to the
name of everlasting, is the globe amaranth,
(Gomphrena globosa.') Milton has immortalized
this lovely flower in his Paradise Lost, where
he describes it as encircling the brows of
angels —

" To the ground,
In solemn adoration, down they cast
Their crowns, inwove with amaranth and gold,
Immortal amaranth, a flower which once
In Paradise fast hy the Tree of Life
Began to bloom."

]STor is the mention of the amaranthine wreath

166 GARDEN FLOWERS.

peculiar to our great poet. Homer had long
before told how, at the burial of Achilles, the
Thessalians wore it in honour of the warrior,
and it appears to have been often worn at fune-
rals, in the early ages of Greece. In Sumatra,
where this flower grows wild, its purple globes,
which seem as if sprinkled with gold, are worn
as garlands around the head ; and both in Por-
tugal and in Paris, these flowers are mingled
with the wreaths made to deck the shrine of the
saint, or the tomb of the dead. In the former
country, churches are adorned with this flower,
and the French term it violette immortelle. The
plant, though separated by modern botanists
from the amaranth genus, is very nearly allied
to it.

A large number of amaranths are cultivated
in this country, one of the most common of
which, is the flower called love-lies-bleeding,
{AmaranthtLS caudatus,) the flower gentle of the
old writers. It was known to Gerarde by this
name, and also by that of florimor. He says
of it, " It has exceeded any skill of mine to
describe the excellency and beauty of this rare
flower." It has variegated leaves. It grows
wild in Persia, China, and India.

The prince's feather, (Amaranthus hypochon-
driacus,) with its long velvet plume-like flowers,
is equally common, and blooms also at this
season ; and the three-coloured amaranth,
which blooms from June to September, and is
called by the French fleur de jalousie, is a very
pretty species. It is a native of the East Indies,

AUGUST. 167

and was known to the old English gardener by
the name of passevelours. The leaves of some
species are eaten, and the foliage of several is
boiled as spinach, in the East Indies.

The coxcomb amaranths are very curious
flowers, and notwithstanding a certain formality
of appearance, are much prized for the deep
purple or red of their silky or velvet blossoms.
The crested amaranth (Celosia eristatd) is a
native of many parts of Asia, and is said by
Thunberg to be cultivated to such perfection in
Japan, as that the heads of flowers are often a
foot long, and of equal breadth. There are
many varieties of this amaranth, and the scarlet
species are extremely beautiful. Several are
natives of China.

The strawberry blite, or Indian spinach, is
now red with its juicy fruits, by which it is
known to us, rather than by its less conspicu-
ous greenish flowers, which bloom in April.
These fruits are something similar to our wood
strawberries, but are neither so handsome nor
so palatable. Their juice flows very freely,
often staining with its deep red the hand which
touches them, and the juice was formerly used
by cooks in colouring puddings. The berry-
headed species {Blitum capitatum) is the most
ornamental ; it is a native plant of southern
Europe. There are three species in our gar-
dens ; they are commonly called strawberry
spinach. Their name, blitum, taken from the
Greek, and signifying fit only to be thrown
away, would suggest the thought that they were

168 GARDEN FLOWERS.

not ornamental, yet their berries render them
so in a good degree, nor is their handsome
spinach-like foliage unworthy of admiration.
The crimson berries are covered, like those of
the strawberry, with small seeds.

The strawberry blite is one of the greatest
ornaments of the summer woods of Canada,
and it grows in great profusion in those forests,
where

11 The hiccory, the sumach, and the red maple,
The fringe-tree, and the acacia triple-thorned,
Temper the ardour of the burning sun,
And on the locust's violet-breathing flowers
Cast the pale yellow of its meekened fire."

The author of the " Backwoods of Canada "
mentions having gathered branches a foot in
length, thickly studded with its crimson ber-
ries, and regrets that the beautiful fruit should,
by its insipidity, be unfit for eating : she adds,
that on the banks of creeks and in rich ground
it grows luxuriantly, " sending up twenty or
thirty branches, drooping with the weight of
their magnificent burden. As the middle and
superior stems ripen and decay, the lateral
ones come on, presenting a succession of fruit,
from July till the frosts nip them off, in Sep-
tember."

The Canadian Indians are said to be fond of
these unpalatable berries, and they use the
juice as a dye, and make it into ink. The
writer before quoted, states, however, that this
ink is liable to fade unless mixed with alum.
She mentions the circumstance of a lady, who
sent a letter from Canada, crossed with the red

AUGUST. 169

ink made from the juice of this plant, without
having first taken the precaution of fixing it
with alum. The epistle from the far country
reached its destination, but the ink had faded,
and the writing become illegible ; and the
friend who had anxiously longed for the intel-
ligence which it was to convey, had to wait
some months before a more permanent liquid
should record the good news, which the Scrip-
ture has described as in its effects like cold
water to a thirsty soul.

The tribe of rudbeckia are annuals of great
beauty, but their large size excludes them from
the smaller gardens. This is exclusively a
North American genus. They have all starry
blossoms, and are yellow or purple. The pur-
ple rudbeckia, (Budbeckia purpurea^) which was
known to our gardeners as early as 1699, and
is very hardy, is a singular looking flower.
Phillips observes of it, that its petals being
pendulous, and curling inwards, have the ap-
pearance of so many pieces of narrow ribbon,
notched at the end. The colour of this flower
is of a purplish crimson. One or two of the
species are fragrant. This genus was named in
honour of Eudbeck, an enthusiastic botanist of
Sweden, who, having just completed a work
entitled " The Elysian Fields," was so distressed
at witnessing the destruction by fire of this
cherished production of his mind, that he died
of grief, in 1702. During his last days, how-
ever, his son laboured diligently to re-write
this work, and it was published in the course
f3

170 GARDEN FLOWERS,

of the year of his death, and that which pre-
ceded it. '

If we were to go now into the fields, we
should see the milfoil, or yarrow, scattered in
plenty over their grassy surface, and the garden
yarrows are blooming too on the border. They
are a vigorous family, with yellow, red, or
white flowers, the ornaments of the pasture
lands of southern Europe. One of the prettiest
kinds, which is also one of the most general, is
the woolly milfoil, {Achillea tomentosa,) which
has pale yellow flowers, and blooms from May
to October. The red-flowered kind {Achillea
tanacetifolia,) is also a pretty flower, and grows
on the Swiss mountains ; while the double va-
riety of our wild milfoil is no less ornamental.
The musk-scented yarrow is the genijn of the
Swiss, who use the plant medicinally ; while
the herdsmen of the hills value it much for
their cattle. The Laplanders and Finns mix
some species of yarrow with their tobacco, for
smoking. The golden yarrow of our gardens,
which is not more than six inches high, and has
an abundance of rich yellow clusters, is a beau-
tiful plant for the edging of a border.

The sweet-scented golden rod, (Solidago
odora,) is another of the few fragrant flowers
which we find in the garden at this season.
The odour is diffused from the leaves, and is
compared to the mingled scent of sassafras and
anise. It is often planted in the garden or
shrubberies, and is sometimes called Aaron's
rod.

SEPTEMBER. 171

SEPTEMBER.

" Whither be the violets gone,

Those that bloomed of late so gay,
And in fragrant garlands strown,
Decked the blooming flower-queen's way?
Youth, alas, the spring must fly,
Yonder violets withered lie.

Whither are the roses fled,

We so gaily singing bound,
When the brow of shepherd maid,
And the herdsman's hat was crowned ?
Maiden, summer days must fly,
Yonder roses withered lie."

Jacobi.

Almost all the flowers of the last month bloom
also during September, yet now, as their num-
ber will seem gradually to diminish, we are
pleased to mark the bright foliage of the ever-
greens, and to look on the pale greenish flowers
which hang among the branches of the arbutus
or strawberry tree. The common arbutus is
now generally enumerated among British plants,
but several others, as well as this species, are
cultivated in this country. The oriental arbu-
tus {Arbutus andrachne) is scarcely less general
than the common kind, though requiring more
care. It blooms some months earlier than
that, and may be distinguished by the greater
beauty of its foliage and flowers, its broader
leaves, which are also less notched at the edges,
and by its red bark which peels off, and leaves
much of the trunk smooth and brown.

This arbutus is a native of the Levant. In
the isle of Cyprus it attains an enormous size.

172 GARDEN FLOWERS.

In a great part of this island, no other tree is
large enough to cast any extent of shadow, and
the inhabitants sit in parties beneath its boughs.
Both this and our common arbutus are abund-
ant vin many parts of Palestine, and growing
to a much larger size, they are very pic-
turesque objects, the oriental species flowering
in spring, and our common kind in autumn.
The arbutus, in the lovely valleys, is often
found with a stem six feet in circumference,
and, with the oak and the fir, is said to be
one of the trees which principally give a wooded
character to the hills of Gilead and Bashan ;
So too, in southern Judea, these shrubs form
an important part of the woodland scenery,
mingling with the Scotch fir and the oak ; and
although the olive still is, as it ever was, the
characteristic tree of Palestine, yet the arbutus
is so general as to attract the attention of all
travellers who observe the scenery of the Holy
Land. Its fruits, too, are more beautiful and
conspicuous than its flowers, and they may be
safely eaten. A very showy species from the
Canary isles is kept in the greenhouse, and we
have also a handsome Peruvian kind.

And now clumps of the China aster, {Calli-
stephus,) with their large stars of white, lilac,
pink, purple, or variegated blossoms, are among
the most attractive of the autumnal flowers.
This is one of the flowers which the Chinese
prize and cultivate so highly, and in China it
is much larger than in our gardens. Several
kinds of starry flowers, under the general name

SEPTEMBER. 173

of aster, among which are this genus, as well
as that commonly called chrysanthemum, re-
ceive especial care in China. By this people,
their large water-lily, the nehimbium, is es-
teemed as the very chief of flowers, and though
it grows Avild in their streams, yet it is brought
into their enclosed grounds. Next to this, in
their estimation, come the fragrant olive (Olea
fragrans,) and the innumerable varieties of
star-like blossoms which glitter in golden
beauty, or are shaded off to most delicate tints ;
and which, arranged on terraces, one above
another, offer every variety of hue.

The Michaelmas daisy, or Christmas daisy,
arrayed in its sober tints, is a very useful
flower now, when flowers seem gradually going,
and brown leaves rustle on the spots where
zephyrs lately played among soft green branches.
The common Michaelmas dais}', {Aster Trades-
cantia,) and the Alpine species, (Aster Alpinus^)
are among the handsomest kinds. Like most
of the genus, these flowers are natives of the
fields of Virginia, and the common kind was
named in honour of the celebrated naturalist
John Tradescant, who introduced it in England
among several other plants, the seeds of which
he brought from America.

Far more beautiful in colour are the brilliant
bell-shaped blossoms of the gentianella, or large
flowered dwarf gentian, (Gentiana acaulis^)
which are now blooming for the second time
in the year, and seem to be as vigorous at the
autumnal season, as in the early months. This

174 GARDEN FLOWERS.

beautiful flower grows in profusion on the
Welsh mountains, and has been found on some
of the highest of the Swiss Alps. Its large
flowers are of the colour called mazarine blue,
and they are sometimes used as an edging for
the border. It is less difficult to cultivate than
most of the gentians. These flowers, inhabit-
ing naturally the high mountain regions, require
conditions of atmosphere not to be found in the
lowland garden. A pure and rarefied air
blows over the lofty height where they grow
wild, and the bright light of the summer season
on the mountain can never be rivalled on the
plain. The effect of a bright light on colour,
has been well ascertained by dyers, who cannot
produce the most brilliant tints under a cloudy
sky ; while it is equally evident in its effects on
the plants which exist under its influence.
Our winters too are often unfavourable to moun-
tain flowers ; for though the cold of elevated
regions is far more severe, yet the snow re-
mains much longer on the earth, and thus the
plants are not subjected to the alternate frosts
and thaws to which they are exposed in the
winter and early spring of our country.

We have in our fields a pretty gentian,
(Gentiana campestris,) which, however, attains
a greater degree of perfection in some other
countries, and in the month of October covers
the tops of the hills of Norway. In Sweden
too it is abundant at the same season, and it is
described as one of the most beautiful flowers
of the alpine pastures of that land, its blossoms

SEPTEMBER. 175

clustering among the short grass, and studding
all the surface of the mountain. " The whole
plant,1' says Dr. Clarke, " was scarcely an inch
in height, and seemed to consist of little else
than the petals of its flowers, which, in size and
luxuriance, were out of all proportion to its
diminutive leaves and branches."

The taller yellow gentian (Gentiana luted) is
also a species which can be well cultivated in
the British garden. This flower, besides being
handsome, is valued for the bitter medicine
afforded by its root. It grows wild on the
mountains of all the central parts of Europe,
and is gathered for the French and English
markets. The root also contains an abundance
of sugar, and a spirit is distilled from it called
e?iziangeist, or bitter snaps, which the peasants
of the Swiss Alps drink, under the idea that it
will preserve them from the injurious effects of
the fogs and damps sometimes prevalent on
these regions. Wherever this bitter plant
abounds, the pastures are untouched by cattle,
and large tracts of land which the herdsman
would value, remain unused, because of its
bitterness. It is this principle, however, which
renders it so useful in medicine, and it is one of
the medicines of greatest antiquity. In the
West Indies, where the European constitution
becomes languid by the heat of the climate, it
is customary to take a preparation of gentian
before meals, in order to assist the appetite.

Some other gentians may also be seen
commonly in the garden. The small Alpine

176 GARDEN FLOWERS.

species, (Gentiana nivalis,} which delighted
Linneeus when on the Pyrenees by its blue blos-
soms, is tolerably hardy ; and the kind termed
Calathian violet, succeeds well. These have
both blue flowers. The name of Gentius, a
king of Illyria, is preserved to memory by these
flowers, as this monarch is said, by Pliny, to
have discovered their tonic virtues.

The different kinds of autumnal crocus open
as the season advances. The purple species,
which is so general in this and the next months,
is the saffron crocus, {Crocus sativus,) the stig-
mas of whose flowers form the saffron of the
druggist. This flower has long been cultivated
in many parts of Asia, as well as in Greece.
In Persia and Cashmere, large plantations of
this crocus are general, and some of the lands
of Smyrna are said to be quite purple with it,
while its flowers are in great abundance in the
gardens of Aleppo. In Europe it seems to
grow wild on the south of the Tyrol, and on the
Alps of Savoy ; but its occasional appearance
in our British meadows does not prove that it
is indigenous there. Dr. Clarke found the
plains of Tahtary covered with its gay flowers,
and its bulbs were deeply seated in the black
vegetable mould which forms the soil of these
wide plains. Notwithstanding that the saffron
crocus is cultivated in England, yet we receive
our chief supply of the drug from France and
Spain. In the latter country the cultivator of
this flower is much annoyed by a fungus found
upon it, and which the French call mort cle

SEPTEMBER. 177

safran. Saffron was formerly much employed
as a medicine and condiment, and is still so
used in the east. The ancients esteemed it as
a perfume ; and so high an opinion of its cheer-
ing and stimulating powers was once prevalent,
that when a man was merry, he was said to
have slept on a hag of saffron.

And now when the meadow saffron is, by its
purple crocus- like flowers, turning our wild
pasture lands into a gay carpet, we find too in
the garden several cultivated species of this
plant. Like the wild colchicum, the leaves of
all wait for the following spring to make their
appearance. Our garden colchicums are of
many colours, and several varieties have double
blossoms. None, except the wild colchicum, is
of much value to the druggist, but great quan-
tities of the roots, seeds, and blossoms of this
are annually collected for medicinal purposes.
Though very similar to the saffron crocus, so
much so, that an inexperienced observer would
mistake the one for the other, yet one simple
and obvious . distinction exists, in the fact, that
the crocus has only three stamens and one
central column or pistil, whereas the colchicum
has six stamens and three pistils. This distinc-
tion might seem of little worth, yet it is truly
valuable; since though the crocus is a plant
which is perfectly innoxious, yet all the species
of the colchicum possess an acrimonious quality,
which in the meadow saffron of our fields is
highly poisonous. Our garden species are
some of them from the isles of Greece, and some

178 GARDEN FLOWERS.

from Hungary and Eussia. They were termed
colchicum from the ancient Colchis, interesting
to the classic reader, by its association, in the
legends of ancient Greece, with the expedition
of the Argonauts.

OCTOBER.

"The little bird, yet to salute the morn,
Upon the naked branches sets her foot,
The leaves now lying on the mossy root;
And there a silly chirruping doth keep,
As though she fain would sing, yet fain would weep ;
Praising fair summer, that so soon is gone,
Or mourning winter, too fast coming on."

Michael Drayton.

Every gust which blows thins the scanty foliage
yet left on the boughs, and the leaf is broken as
it waveth to and fro, while each bright sunbeam
seems to leave its red or yellow tinge on the
leaf ere it quits it. The humble flowers which
yet remain of the summer are pale and wan :
even the taller dahlias are drooping; and were
it not for the Michaelmas daisies and the
Chinese chrysanthemums, and the verdure of
the evergreens, the scene would be already
desolate. Of these, however, it may even now
be said, " They are green before the sun, and
their branch shooteth forth in the garden:"*
yet still we can see that our Saxon forefathers
had appropriately designated this month, wThen
they termed it winter fyllith — winter begin-
ning.

But though no straggling flower needs to be

*Jobviii. 16.

OCTOBER. 179

tied to its support, and no luxuriant growth
has to be restrained by the hand of the culti-
vator, still this month too brings its work to
the gardener. It is now that the autumnal
transplanting of the shrubs takes place, and
most practical gardeners seem to prefer this
season to the spring for these removals. Suckers
of the rose, the lilac, and other trees are to be
taken, and a pleasure is felt in the culture of
these plants,

" Which, save himself who trains them, none can feel."

Much has now to be done too in the greenhouse :

" The surplus branch
Must fly before the knife ; the withered leaf
Must be detached, and where it strews the floor
Swept with a woman's neatness, breathing else
Contagion, and disseminating death."

The interest which has in all periods of time
been taken in the culture of plants, would of
itself prove that the care of a garden is calcu-
lated to afford to many persons a source of
delightful enjoyment. This is confirmed, too,
when we remember that when God planned the
earthly happiness of man, he placed him in a
garden, in which were made to grow, not only
" every tree that was good for food," but such
also as were "pleasant to the sight;" while the
employment of our first parents in their state
of innocence, was to " dress the garden and to
keep it."

The odour of the chrysanthemum is now
very sweet, and it seems as expressive of the
autumn, as the violet is of spring. Several

180 GARDEN FLOWERS.

star- shaped flowers are by botanists placed
under the general name of chrysanthemum,
but our winter flower is the Chinese chrysan-
themvLm, (Chrysanthemum Sinense) which, how-
ever, most modern botanists term pyrethrum.
The most aromatic of all the species is the old-
fashioned small red' kind, which was the first
cultivated in the gardens of this country ; but
this has little beauty compared with those of
modern introduction, the flowers of which are
very large3 and have an odour like honey. The
chrysanthemum is brought to great perfection
in the Chinese garden ; and figures there in
every variety of garden pot, from the elegant
vase, to the uncouth little round pot which we
often see figured on their paintings ; while the
poet of China sings the praise of the chrysan-
themum, as the minstrel of Persia tells the
delights of the rose. The Japanese value the
flower equally with the Chinese, and it is a
favourite ornament of their saloons and gardens.
In the year 1795, the chrysanthemum was
brought into the English garden, though it
appears to have been cultivated here at an
earlier period, but to have been lost. Eeceiving
it from a warm region, our cultivators naturally
thought that it would require great care in our
colder climate, and it was long deemed unfit for
the open air. Now every garden sends forth
its sweet fragrance, at a time when it is almost
the only fragrant flower of the border. The
Chinese are said to cultivate more than fifty
varieties of this plant, for each of which they

OCTOBER. 181

have a distinct name. In England many
varieties are enumerated, and the number is
increasing ; and the beautiful quilled species
which have of late years been introduced, will,
probably, originate many more. The varieties
indeed are perpetually changing ; but Mrs.
Loudon has observed, that they may all be
classed in one or other of the following divi-
sions : the ranunculus flowered ; the incurved ;
the China aster flowered ; the marigold flowered,
the clustered, the tasselled, and the quilled. The
best annual chrysanthemum is considered to be
the chrysanthemum tricolor, which has yellow,
white, and purple flowers ; and equally hardy,
and worthy a place in every flower garden, is
the }^ellow chrysanthemum coronarium.

The Greeks gave the general name of chry-
santhemum to several flowers of a similar form
to this. It signifies gold flower, and was given
from the bright colours of some species known
to them.

Some species of feverfew, with flowers some-
thing like those of the camomile, bloom late
in the year. The roots are used in medicine,
and several of the kinds which have double
blossoms are very ornamental. The flowers of
the double variety of our common feverfew
(Pyrethmm partlienimji) look like little tufts of
snow on its branches, but the odour is very
unpleasant. One or two yellow-flowered kinds
are handsome, as the milfoil-leaved species,
which is a native of Caucasus ; and some very
pretty ones grow wild on the Peak of Teneriffe.

182 GARDEN FLOWERS.

The cotoneasters are now assuming their red,
or in some species, their purple berries. Their
pretty white or red blossoms come out in early
spring, but they are so small as to be little con-
spicuous, and the plant is far better known to
us by the beads of coral with which it is studded
during autumn and winter. The common kind
(Cotoneaster vulgaris) often grows in gardens.
It is a frequent shrub in southern Europe, and
was introduced into this land in 1656. The
other species are of comparatively recent intro-
duction, and are natives of India. The plant
was named from the cottony down which
invests the young shoots and fruits. Some of
the Nepal species are handsome, especially the
taper pointed and the downy kinds. They are
all hardy, and may be grafted on the quince or
hawthorn.

Although the sweet mignonette {Reseda
odorata) is truly a summer flower, yet it may,
by a little management, and without the aid of
the greenhouse, be made to flower almost
throughout the year. Indeed, the hardy plants
which are self-sown, are often numerous at this
season. If the mignonette be wanted for a
winter flower it should be sown in July, and
kept well watered. It is very fragrant, and the
Parisians and the inhabitants of our own metro-
polis alike value its odours, for it may be seen
in both cities where

" The sashes ranged
Of orange, myrtle, or the fragrant weed,
The Frenchman's darling,"

send forth sweet odours on the air.

OCTOBER. 183

It is rather remarkable that we in England
should call this flower so exclusively by its
French name, from mignonne, little darling,
when the Frenchman terms it la resede
(TEgypte. The Spaniards, who are also fond of
this flower, retain for it the endearing name of
minoneta. This plant is much cultivated by
the gardeners who supply the London markets,
on account of its use for balconies ; and its deli-
cate scent is rarely disliked. It is generally
thought to be a native of Egypt, and to have
been first sown in the gardens of the south of
Europe, whence it was sent into England about
the year 1752, when it was cultivated by Mil-
ler in the Botanic Garden of Chelsea, and soon
became a popular flower. The mignonette has
been found apparently wild in some parts of
Barbary, but it seems probable that it may
have sprung up from seeds borne by winds or
other means from the Moorish gardens, where
many flowers are cultivated. The plant was
termed, by the ancients, reseda, from resedo, to
calm or appease ; because it was in former
times applied to allay the irritation accom-
panying wounds. Pliny tells that it was re-
garded as a charm, and gives an account of a
superstitious form of words which preceded its
use as a remedy.

The tree mignonette {Reseda odorata frutes-
cens) was long considered as a species distinct
from the fragrant herb, but it is merely a variety
produced by the cultivator. This perennial
shrub retains its sweet odour during winter, and

184 GARDEN FLOWERS.

is obtained in the following manner. A vigorous
plant of the annual mignonette is, during April,
transplanted into a garden pot, and the young
blossoms nipped off while in the bud. A stick
is then placed in the pot, to which the plant
may be attached ; and in the autumn all the
lower shoots and leaves are stripped off, so as
to give the plant the appearance of a minia-
ture tree. It must then be removed to a
warmer room. As winter advances the stem
gradually becomes more woody ; and if the
plant be allowed during summer a free access
of air, it may thus be grown for several years
in a room.

The attempt to render this plant a perennial,
renders it necessary to prune away the seed-
vessels as soon as they appear, as, if allowed to
perfect its seeds, the tree mignonette would
soon lose its vigour.

We have a number of species of the mignon-
ette in the garden, but the common fragrant
one is by far the most valuable. Most kinds
grow wild in the south of Europe, and a few of
them in the sands of Africa.

And now some sweet violets bloom again at
the close of the year. This is often the case
with the common purple March violet, and its
double variety ; while the sweetly-scented
Neapolitan violets and the Eussian violets are
at this season in full perfection. The Parisians
contrive to obtain at almost all seasons the
flowers of the common violet, which they so
much prize. This is done by checking the

NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER. 185

early blossoms that hide among the leaves in
spring, and thus

"The violets, whose looks are like the sky,"

may be found in their flower markets, from
early spring till winter has long begun his
reign.

Old prejudice and superstitions induced our
forefathers to undervalue this second fragrance
of the violet. Wellsford, in his " Scents of
Nature," records that, " when roses and violets
flourish in autumn, it is an evil sign of an in-
suing plague the year following, or of some
pestiferous disease ;" and so the blooming of a
Sower, which might have told of God's love,
was enough to trouble a man's mind, and to
presage ills which should have no existence but
in his own imaginings.

NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER.

The withered leaves bestrew the garden path,

Made miry with the fall of fleeting showers ;
The sun emits a feeble ray, which hath

No power to warm or cheer the gloomy hours,

The robin only sings among the bowers,
Now bare and desolate, his simple lay :
All other birds are mute and sad, or they

Have flitted with the spring and summer flowers ;
Yet are the borders not enrirely bare,

For many tinted asters still remain,
And bright chrysanthemums nod here and there

Their heads, to chilling blast and pelting rain.

H. G. Adams.

A change has come rapidly over the garden
during the last few weeks, and few and faint are
the tints which variegate the winter landscape.

186 GARDEN FLOWERS.

He " who giveth rain upon the earth, and
sendeth waters upon the fields," calls too for
" the whirlwind out of the south, and cold out
of the north."* Even the crystal brooks are
now, in the descriptive words of the patriarch,
" blackish by reason of the ice, wherein the
snow lies hid ;" and of a great portion of the
day it may be said, " Now men see not the
bright light by reason of darkness." The pro-
gress of the early year seems to breathe a call
to energy and exertion ; but its gradual decline
seems to bid us " stand still and consider the
wonderful works of God."

The Chinese or monthly rose (Rosa indicd)
yet puts forth its delicate and odorous blooms,
which, if they have not quite so bright a tint
or so powerful a perfume as in midsummer,
are not less valued now, when gayer roses have
left us. Like all other species of rose it requires
a pure air, and will not thrive well in the crowded
city. More than two hundred varieties of the
China rose are known, and Villaresi, the royal
gardener at Monza, is said by Loudon, to have
raised upwards of fifty varieties of this species,
which have never reached Britain. The China
rose flourishes much better in France and at
the south of Europe than in our country, and
some of the varieties alluded to are described
as quite black, others much resembling a ra-
nunculus, and many of them as highly odori-
ferous. The pretty .noisette, or tea-scented
roses, varieties of the China rose, are sold at

* Job xxxvii. 9 : Job vi. 16.

NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER. 187

Paris in small bouquets, wrapped round with
coloured papers. The monthly rose, as its
name might import, is in bloom almost through-
out the year, but has most beauty and vigour
in the months of June and July. The stem
and leaves are of a light green, and the flowers
semi-double, and its colour varies from a blush
colour to a deep red. In order to secure a
good number of autumnal blossoms, the young
hWer buds should be cut from the tree in
June.

The winter cherry {Physalis alkehengi) is
now in full lustre, as its bright red, glossy fruit
shines through the thin, fibrous, bladder-like
calyx which encircles it. The white flowers of
this plant open in July, and are ornamental,
but it is for the sake of the beautiful fruits
that the plant is valued. When the calyx is
macerated, either by exposure to the rains
of the winter season, or by steeping in
water, it forms a very pretty addition to the
everlasting flowers, and the evergreens which
are placed in the winter vase. The fruit,
which is slightly acid, is wholesome, and was
esteemed by the ancients for some valuable
medicinal properties which they considered it
to possess. In Spain, Switzerland, and Ger-
many, it is a common fruit of the dessert. In
all these countries it grows wild, as it does also
in China. The fruits of the eatable winter
cherry, {Physalis Peruviana,) a native of South
America, are sometimes cultivated in this
country for tarts.

188 GARDEN FLOWERS.

The winter cherry was known by its Arabic
name of Alkehengi to the botanists of queen
Elizabeth's time. Gerarde says of it, " The
red winter cherrie groweth upon old broken
walls, about the borders of fieldes and in moist
shadowie places, and in most gardens, where
some conserve it for the beautie of the berries,
and others for the great and worthy vertues
thereof." Modern physicians think little of
the properties ascribed to these plants.

Sometimes the bright stars of the anemones
enliven the borders, even in December, while
the laurustinus, and the Christmas rose, are the
common flowers of every parterre. The former
plant {Viburnum tinus) is a shrub of much
beauty, and justly prized for its winter blos-
soms, which are of a purplish red colour, when
half expanded, and which grow in large white
clusters among its evergreen leaves. Dark
blue berries succeed the flower. The shrub
was introduced into the English garden in the
year 1596, and though so hardy as to bloom
amid winter winds and nipping frosts, is a
native of the soft climates of the south of
Europe, and an ornament to the hills and plains
of northern Africa. It was known to the
ancients by the name of Tinus, and, because its
leaves, like those of the laurel, are evergreen,
it was called laurustinus ; while the name of
viburnum, from viere, to tie, was applied to it
on account of the flexible branches of many
species, which are used for binding boughs
together. Our wild, wayfaring tree, which

NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER. 189

country people of Kent call the cottoner, is used
for making baskets, and is also a species of
viburnum. Several varieties of the laurustinus
are known in our gardens. The hairy kind has
its leaves hairy underneath, and on the margin,
and is found in thg neighbourhood of Spain and
Portugal, and near Nice ; and the shining lau-
rustinus has larger and more glossy foliage, and
is not in flower until spring. It is abundant
about Algiers, and blooms freely in the classic
soil of Mount Atlas. When the leaves of these
plants decay, they should be carefully cleared
from the shrub, if it is growing near a house,
as in addition to the injurious effect of an atmo-
sphere tainted by a decayed vegetation, this
withered foliage diffuses a remarkably fetid
odour.

And now, at Christmas time, we may gather
from our gardens a flower as beautiful as any
which the summer produces. The Christmas
rose, (Helleborus niger,) in form like a large
white rose, standing among its dark evergreen
leaves, is the hardiest of all flowers. It is wild
on high mountains, and its abundant growth in
the isle of Anticyra, as well as its repute in
the cure of mental disorder, originated the
proverb of the ancients, " Send the lunatic to
Anticyra." This species, as well as another,
the eastern hellebore, {Helleborus orientalist)
is still in use among medical practitioners,
but the powerful effects of these plants render
this a remedy requiring great caution. The latter
hellebore grows abundantly in the Levant, and

190 GARDEN FLOWERS.

is very similar to our common winter flower,
except that its blossoms are purple.

Many superstitions were connected by the
ancients with the Christmas rose. In their
dread of the presence and power of demons,
they had a number of charms, which they con-
sidered effectual in guarding them from ill, and
when the winter covered the ground with the
white flowers of the hellebore, they strewed
them over their floors, that thus they might
hallow their dwellings ; and so they introduced
a real evil into their homes, instead of an
imaginary one, for the perfume of this plant is
highly injurious to health. When the ancients
brought in these roses, and scattered them thus,
they sung aloud hymns of praise to their pagan
deities — the gods whom their own hands had
made, while they entreated their aid, to keep
them from the devices of evil men. The root
of this plant was formerly powdered and taken
as snuff, and the ancient Gauls are said to have
been accustomed to dip their arrows in the
herb. All the species of hellebore contain an
energetic medicinal principle.

The moist climate of our island agrees wTell
with the evergreens. Enabled, as they are, by
a peculiar structure, to withstand a moderate
proportion of heat and drought, yet the hot and
dry summers of the greater part of the conti-
nent of Europe are unfavourable to them. The
thick tough leaves of the evergreen shrubs and
trees, are covered with a harder cuticle or skin
than those cf most other plants ; and are also

NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER. 191

characterised by having fewer evaporating
pores on the surface. The old leaves of this
enduring foliage do not drop from the trees till
the spring or summer, when the thickening
new leaves of the well-clad branches are so
many, that we are not conscious of the fall of
the leaf. To our gardens the evergreens give
a cheerful appearance, as contrasted with cold
naked boughs ; but in countries as in Australia,
where the trees are almost all evergreen, the
traveller wearies of their monotony, and longs
for the changing tints which variegate our
foliage with the changing seasons.

Our most common and hardy evergreen is
the holly, {Ilex aquifolium,) which is now glis-
tening on the wild hedge, as well as in the
garden. We have, however, under culture,
several varieties of this plant, some of which
have yellow berries; others, leaves variegated
with pale yellow, or several tints of green ; but
none is more beautiful than the common kind.
The laurel, too, (Cerasus lauro cerasus,) looks
bright under the clear sky of a frosty noonday.
Both this and the Portugal laurel (Cerasus Lusi-
tanica) blossom early in the spring. The first
account which we find of the laurel in England,
states, that it was planted in the garden of a
London merchant, who used, in winter, to cover
it with a blanket. It is a native of the south
of Europe. The leaves are sometimes used to
flavour custards, but it should not be forgotten
that they are very poisonous in their nature.

The laurel of the poet is the sweet-bay,

192 GARDEN FLOWERS.

{Lauras nohilis.) In former days its branches
enwreathed the head of the priestess of Delphi,
and were hung about the gates of the Roman
emperors. The victorious general, too, who
had carried the proud eagle to the conquest,
was congratulated by letters wrapped in the
fragrant bay leaves ; and the soldiers who fought
under him, entered the imperial city, carrying
triumphantly the branches of the bay tree. It
is a native of Italy, and of the southern parts of
Asia. The perfume of its bruised leaf is very
pleasant, and was once supposed effectual in
relieving the symptoms of many diseases.

The handsome evergreen thorn, {Crataegus
pyracantha,) with its profusion of scarlet berries,
vies with the mountain ash in winter splendour,
and its dark foliage brightens in the sun. It
is a native of North America. Some of the
garden species of broom, too, retain their ver-
dure, and the rhododendrons are still green ;
and the hardy alaternus {Rhamnus alaternus)
glows with as bright a tint, and looks as fresh,
even in the middle of the smoky city, as if it
were flourishing under the clearest sky.

And thus amid all the changes of nature,
God has given to earth, to its wild woods, and
its sheltered gardens, a voice to praise him.
" For who knoweth not in all these that the
hand of the Lord hath wrought this?'7 Job xii. 9.

THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY: INSTITUTED 1799,

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