plaie at coits in the field with Mercurie, and being heedlesse of himselfe, Mercurie's coit happened by mishap to hit him on the head, whereby he received a wound that yer long killed him altogether, to the great discomfort of his friends. Finallie, in the place where he bled, saffron was after found to grow, wherevpon the people seeing the colour of the chiue as it stood, (although I doubt not but it grew there long before,) adjudged it to come of the blood of Crocus, and therefore they gave it his name.

The Saffron Crocus (Crocus sativus) is in the Linnæan class Triandria and order Monogynia, and in the Natural order Iridea.

PHEASANT'S EYE.

Adonis; L. Adonide; Fr. Die Adonisblume, or adonisrose; Ger. Adonisbloem; Dutch. Flore d'Adono; Ital. Adonis; Sp. and Port.

Look, in the garden blooms the flos adonis,
And memory keeps of him who rashly died,
Thereafter changed by Venus, weeping, to this flower.

ANON,

THE beautiful flower which we are now about to describe is so diminutive that it frequently escapes notice, concealed by its own compact feathery foliage, or by the mass of clover or corn among which it most commonly grows. It is rarely seen by the indifferent pedestrian, who seeks health from the free air of the country in this exercise of his physical powers. The observant rambler, however, looks with piercing eye to the right and left of his path, in search of the retiring beauties of our smaller wild flowers, and not seldom, from the merry month of May to the wintry month of November,—a month proverbial for its gloom, a month when the weather-wise are least able to fortel what may be the features of the coming day in this respect,―will he find the rich red-purple flower of Adonis blooming in all its beauty.

There is a reference in the above anonymous lines to the mythological story concerning Venus and Adonis, whose name has been applied to the genus. The fable, as related by various ancient authors, is told in different ways, but all concur in this, that Adonis grew up a most beautiful youth, and that Venus loved him, and shared with him the pleasures of the chase, always cautioning

him to beware of the wild beasts; notwithstanding, having wounded a boar, the animal turned upon him in its fury, and killed him. Some traditions allege that Mars or Apollo assumed the form of a boar, and thus slew Adonis. The intelligence of his being wounded having been communicated to Aphrodite, (a Greek name of Venus, referring to the fable which asserted that goddess to have been born from the froth of the ocean,) she hastened to the spot where he lay, and sprinkled nectar into his blood, from which immediately flowers sprung up. the flos Adonis, the flower of Adonis, a name given to the plant which we have placed in our group.

Such is the fabulous origin of

The flower is a great favourite with the French, and their poets have delighted to refer to the tragic end of the youth whose memory it perpetuates; we shall quote a few lines from La Fontaine.

Je n'ai jamais chanté que l'ombrage des bois,
Flore, Echo, les Zéphyrs et leurs molles haleines,
Le vert tapis des prés et l'argent des fontaines.
C'est parmi les forêts qu'a vécu mon héros;
C'est dans les bois qu'amour a troublé son repos.
Ma muse en sa faveur de myrte s'est parée;
J'ai voulu célébrer l'amant de Cythérée,
Adonis, dont la vie eut termes si courts,

Qui fut pleuré des Ris, qui fut plaint des Amours.

We cannot refrain from transferring to our pages the beautiful lines by Keats, wherein the couch of Adonis is described in sweetest poetry, enriched by the flowers with which the author has chosen to adorn it.

A chamber, myrtle-wall'd, embowered high,
Full of light, incense, tender minstrelsy,
And more of beautiful and strange beside:
For on a silken couch of rosy pride,

In midst of all there lay a sleeping youth

Of fondest beauty; fonder, in fair sooth,
Than sighs could fathom, or contentment reach;
And coverlids gold-tinted like the peach,

Or ripe October's faded marigolds,

Fell sleek about him in a thousand folds-
Not hiding up an Apollonian curve

Of neck and shoulder, nor the tenting swerve
Of knee from knee, nor ankle's pointing light,
But rather, giving them to the filled sight
Officiously. Sideway his face reposed
On one white arm, and tenderly unclosed,
By tenderest pressure, a faint damask mouth
To slumbery pout, just as the morning south
Disparts a dew-lipped rose. Above his head
Four lily stalks did their white honours wed
To make a coronal; and round him grew
All tendrils green, of every bloom and hue,
Together intertwined, and tramelled fresh:
The vine of glossy sprout; the ivy mesh,
Shading its Ethiop berries; and woodbine,
Of velvet leaves, and bugle-blooms divine;
Convolvulus in streaked vases flush;

The creeper, mellowing for an autumn blush;
And virgin's bower, trailing airily;

With others of the sisterhood. Hard by,
Stood serene Cupids watching silently.
One, kneeling to a lyre, touched the strings,
Muffling to death the pathos with his wings;
And, ever and anon, uprose to look
At the youth's slumber; while another took
A willow bough, distilling odorous dew,
And shook it on his hair; another flew

In through the woven roof, and fluttering-wise
Rained violets upon his sleeping eyes.

No doubt the flower is named after this Adonis, but whether or not it be the same as that which the ancients designated by the name, we are not able to determine. The French sometimes call it "Goutte de sang," from the deep blood-red hue of its flowers. It is a native of our corn fields, and was noticed by Gerard two hundred and fifty years ago as growing wild in the western parts

of England, from whence he obtained seed, and sowed it in his garden, for the sake of the beauty of the flower.

Though not a common flower, yet it is found often about London, and in Kent, by the side of the Medway, between Rochester and Maidstone, and in other parts of England; about Glasgow, in Scotland; and in the neighbourhood of Dublin.

The plant is rarely met with among spring corn, but if after the harvest the field remain undisturbed until the succeeding year, the plants will appear in abundance, from which we may infer, that the proper season for sowing its seeds is autumn.

This plant has a tapering root, with branched fibres. Its stem is branched, and grows to the height of a foot. The stems are alternate, the flowers solitary, terminating the branches; the petals bright scarlet; the anthers crimson or purple.

The Pheasant's Eye (Adonis autumnalis), so called from its resmblance to the beautiful eye of that bird, is placed in the Linnæan class Polyandria, and order Polygynia, and in the Natural order Ranunculacea.