SEPTEMBEE. 



431 



" Lavish Stock that scents the garden round," 

 since this seems ready ever to freshen our olfactory 

 nerves when vre think of it ; and indeed actually the 

 annual or Ten-week Stock, sown in May, will often 

 continue in flower all through Autumn until near 

 Christmas. Another old favourite entwined with 

 earliest recollection, is the Hosebay Willow-herb (Epi- 

 lobium angustifolium~) , whose lofty spikes of bright 

 violet combined with their rose-coloured elongated 

 siliques present a combination of colour and a show 

 of splendour not excelled by flowers of greater pre- 

 tension. How well do they recall gardens known in 

 days long past, where the footsteps of loved relatives 

 are all now, alas, long ago effaced. 



The Eosebay "Willow-herb is now found naturalized 

 in many spots, but must have spread much since the 

 days of GEEAKD, who only mentions it as wild in 

 Yorkshire in his day. The blood-red Love-lies-bleed- 

 ing (poetical name !), and another flower of the genus 

 Amarantus the Prince's feather (A. Jiypochondriacus) , 

 are old garden flowers of autumn, dear to thoughtful 

 love. So may any one in mature life resuscitate in 

 their garden ideas of early prime as well as of present 

 enjoyment, if, like COWLEY, their wish should be in 

 the evening of life to " be master at last of a small 

 house and large garden," and there dedicate their time 

 to the culture of flowers and the study of Nature. 



In closing this floral sketch, one little characteristic 

 flower, seen in almost every garden at this time, must 

 not be forgotten, as it commemorates the old classical 

 story of Venus and Adonis, the crimson or deep 

 scarlet flowers of the little Adonis autumnalis being 

 stated to have received their tinge from the blood of 



