bulbeux [bulbous stock]; campane blanche, cloche blanche [both signifying white bell]; baguenadier d'hiver.

These flowers are very pretty and delicate, and look well, like the common Snow-drop, when planted several together, but it must not be close; for they require a distance of five inches from each other, and must be set four or five inches deep. Thus they require more room than will often be afforded them, except in the open ground; and, after all, they are deficient in one of the greatest charms of the true Snow-drop-the coming in a wintry season, when few others visit us. We look upon the Snow-drop as a friend in adversity; sure to appear when most needed.

The snow-drop, who, in habit white and plain,
Comes on, the herald of fair Flora's train;
The coxcomb crocus, flower of simple note,
Who by her side struts in a herald's coat."
CHURCHILL.

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Mr. Churchill treats the crocus with a strangely unmerited contempt. The yellow crocus is a brilliant and beautiful flower, and the pale crocus is marked with a soft and delicate pencilling, very similar to some of the geranium flowers.

The Snow-drop is the earliest blower of all our wild flowers, and will even show her head above the snow, as if to prove her rivalry in whiteness.

"Lone flower, hemmed in with snows, and white as they."
WORDSWORTH.

"Already now the snow-drop dares appear,
The first pale blossom of the unripened year;
As Flora's breath, by some transforming power,
Had changed an icicle into a flower."

MRS. BARBAuld.

"Like pendent flakes of vegetating snow,
The early herald of the infant year,
Ere yet the adventurous crocus dares to blow,
Beneath the orchard boughs thy buds appear.
While still the cold north-east ungenial lowers,
And scarce the hazle in the leafless copse
Or sallows show their downy powdered flowers,
The grass is spangled with thy silver drops.
Yet when those pallid blossoms shall give place
To countless tribes of richer hue, and scent,
Summer's gay blooms, and Autumn's yellow race,
I shall thy pale inodorous bells lament.

So journeying onward in life's varying track,

Even while warm youth its bright illusion lends,
Fond memory often with regret looks back
To childhood's pleasures, and to infant friends."
MRS. C. SMITH.

CORYMBIFERE.

SOUTHERNWOOD.

ARTEMISIA ABROTANUM.

SYNGENESIA POLYGAMIA SUPERFLUA.

From Artemisia, the wife of Mausolus, King of Caria; called also Old Man.-French, l'auronc des jardins; la citronelle; la garderobe, from its use in preventing moths from getting into wardrobes and clothes-presses.-Italian, abrotano, abruotino, abruotina.

SOUTHERNWOOD is well known as an aromatic shrub, growing three or four feet high. It is a native of many parts of Europe and Asia, where it produces an abundance

of small yellow flowers; but the flowers seldom open in this country.

It may be increased by slips planted in April, and well watered: they must remain in the shade till rooted. This plant is often esteemed by old persons for its aromatic scent; but is not now a very fashionable plant. It was formerly a common garden plant in London, as it will live even in the densest parts. It is used in medicine, and its branches will dye wool yellow.

The Artemisia is included among the flowers of poetical origin in Mr. Smith's Poem of Amarynthus :

"That with the yellow crown, named from the queen

Who built the Mausoleum."

This shrub is said not only to repel moths, but to have power to drive away serpents also; it is included among the plants mentioned by Lucan as being used by the Psyllians for that purpose:

"There the large branches of the long-lived hart,
With southernwood, their odours strong impart;
The monsters of the land, the serpents fell,
Fly far away, and shun the hostile smell.”

RHINANTHACEA.

ROWE'S LUCAN, Book 9.

SPEEDWELL.

VERONICA.

DIANDRIA MONOGYNIA.

French, veronique.-Italian, veronica.

MOST of the Veronicas are natives of cold countries, and consequently hardy: they may be increased by parting the roots in autumn; which, in pots, should be done every year. The annual kinds may be sown in Autumn.

The Cross-leaved species requires shelter from frost;

it is increased by cuttings made in any of the summer months. These plants prefer the shade, and must be kept

moist.

The flowers are flesh-coloured, blue, or white. The Blue Rock Speedwell is a beautiful little plant, and is a native of Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Norway, and Scotland. It is by some familiarly called Forget-me-not; a name given also to the ground pine, a species of germander: but the true Forget-me-not is the water mouseear, the Myosotis palustris of the botanists.

It is a lovely little flower, varying in size according to soil and situation; sometimes its diameter is about the third of an inch, and in some places the flowers are so small, that it is not easy to find them. Gerarde describes it as a species of the Euphrasia or Eyebright. The flower described by Spenser in the following lines, to which he gives the name of Astrophel, in compliment to Sir Philip Sidney, whose death he laments, exactly answers to this beautiful little wild-flower.

"The gods, which all things see, this same beheld,
And pitying this pair of lovers true,

Transformed them there lying on the field,

Into one flower that is both red and blue:
It first grows red, and then to blue doth fade,
Like astrophel which thereinto was made.

And in the midst thereof a star appears,
As fairly formed as any star in skies;
Resembling Stella in her freshest years,
Forth darting beams of beauty from her eyes;
And all the day it standeth full of dew,
Which is the tears that from her eyes did flow.

That herb of some starlight is called by name,
Of others penthia, though not so well;
But thou, wherever thou dost find the same,
From this day forth do call it astrophel:
And whensoever thou it up doest take,
Do pluck it softly, for that shepherd's sake."

The Germander Speedwell is a native of Europe and Japan. "Few of our wild flowers," says Mr. Martyn, "can vie in elegance and brilliancy with this; and many plants with far less beauty are cultivated in our gardens. In May and June every hedge-bottom and grassy bank is adorned with it. At night, or under the influence of moisture, the corolla closes, but in dry bright weather appears fully expanded; and though each flower is short lived, there is a copious succession."

Dr. Withering says the leaves are an excellent substitute for tea. The Common-Speedwell has been much recommended for this purpose, especially in Germany and Sweden; and the French still call it the Thé de l'Europe.

The leaves of some of the species are eaten in salad, or as

water-cresses.

ROSACEAE.

SPIREA.

ICOSANDRIA PENTAGYNIA.

The name Spiræa signifies a rope, these shrubs being flexible like ropes, and also because many parts of the stem, and the fruits of some of the species, are twisted. It is also called Bridewort.

THIS is a beautiful genus; most of the species are handsome flowering shrubs: the Willow-leaved, commonly called Spiræa Frutex, grows to a height of from three to six feet, according to the soil; the blossoms are handsome, and of a rose-red; blowing in June and July. In moist seasons, the young shoots from the root will frequently flower in It is a native of Siberia.

autumn.

The Scarlet Spiræa is a native of Pensylvania; the blossoms are of a beautiful red colour, blowing in August and September.

It is not determined whether the Hypericum-leaved Spiræa be a native of Italy, or of North America; it is

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