430 FLOWEES OE 



bright sun, has at this season so exciting an effect. 

 For bright and exhilirating is the influence of the late 

 autumn flowers, like some spectacle of pomp and 

 pageantry glittering before the eye, but not awaking 

 the tender melancholy resulting from other floral 

 contemplations, unless memory or incident rivet a 

 stronger charm. The character of the flower may 

 have something to do with this, as we do not seek a 

 sunflower as we have to search after a violet. But 

 yet the gaudy daffodil 5f the spring is more suggestive 

 than the brightest autumnal flower, and perhaps after 

 the storms and barrenness of winter the budding year 

 awakes keener impressions ; - - in autumn we have 

 become almost satiated with flowers and sweets, and 

 their excitement has become familiar to us. But 

 when a sudden killing frost cuts off our favourites at 

 a stroke, feeling and poetry revives again among 

 withered flowers and falling leaves. 



Before finally quitting the garden and its petted 

 captives, two or three familiar flowers of memory 

 seem to call upon us as if from the beds of the past - 

 there at least they smile bound up with olden joys 

 and old fashoned gardens, they may not be in every 

 new one now. One of these is Honesty or Money- 

 flower (Lunarid), whose broad round silvery silicles 

 honestly display from their transparency whether any 

 or what number of seeds are contained within them. 

 Hound as the full moon they thence gave the latin 

 name of the plant, which as thus fancifully connected 

 with the moon, was supposed to be an enchanting and 

 bewitching herb. Its lilac flowers appear early in the 

 summer. Nor can we forget the sweet purple Stock 

 of every cottage garden in the country 



