560 WILD FLOWERS OF 



of Nature, prepared to renew our explorations at a 

 future time ; for let it be borne in mind, that the 

 beauties of vegetable Creation can never be suffi- 

 ciently investigated at one transient view. In this 

 respect the wonder-working hand of Divine Provi- 

 dence is strikingly manifested to the botanist. Long 

 as he may reside at any particular spot, he will always 

 find somefresJi plant, year after year, presenting itself 

 to his notice, and, occasionally, so numerous will these 

 strangers appear, that he will feel the greatest sur- 

 prise that they could have escaped his observation 

 before and yet, strange to say, years may again 

 elapse before they present themselves, and, perhaps, 

 in the same locality, never. This should be a hint to 

 the Botanical Explorator never to neglect gathering 

 an unknown plant the first time it is noticed, under 

 the deceptive hope that a more favourable opportunity 

 may occur. The investigation of Nature's vegetable 

 beauties has always in some degree the charm of 

 novelty for the enquirer, who sees the landscape under 

 every change of weather, and tracks the flower as well 

 in the gloomy tempest as the sunny gleam. Thus 

 the excursion awakens observation and opens the mind 

 to reflection, while the abstraction from care which 

 the scene bestows, exercises a poetical if not a hallow- 

 ed influence. As one well authenticated fact is worth 

 a hundred theories, so a curious observation, treasured 

 in the memory, will, in all probability, be more likely 

 to lead the mind to elaborate study and minute 

 investigation, than the mere statement of the laws of 

 vegetable organization laid down with dogmatical pre- 

 cision, or the enforcement of any peculiar system 

 loaded with harsh verbiage, painful and annoying to 



