Apiul 1, 1S70.1 



HARDWICKE'S SCIEN C E-GOSSIP. 



7?> 



LOBDS-AND-LADIES, 



(Arum maculatum.) 

 By MAJOR HOLLAND, R.M.L.I. 



^ HE Vernal 

 ^ Equinox has 

 arrived, and 

 King Sol, of 

 whom we have 

 seen so little 

 during the last 

 six months, 

 while lie has heen away down 

 south, starring it amongst the 

 bushrangers and Maoris in the 

 Antipodes, has recrossed the 

 equator, and come back to us 

 like a long-absent landlord, 

 brightening the faces and 

 cheering up the hearts of his 

 depressed dependents. The four 

 winds of heaven have been his 

 equerries and outriders, dash- 

 ing after him, full cry, into this 

 northern hemisphere— whew— how they howl round 

 our chimneys at night, and rattle the loose slates 

 and tiles, and rant and tear about amongst the 

 ricks and sheds of the farmsteads ; how they drag 

 the thatch off, and send the straw whirling all over 

 the country ; how reckless they are about the poor 

 sailors out at sea, and what shocking liberties they 

 take with hats, wigs, umbrellas, and petticoats at the 

 street corners,— yet we are all glad that they are 

 come, these wild March winds, the boisterous heralds 

 of the welcome Spring, rousiug the hibernating 

 Flora of these chilly British Isles from her frosty 

 slumbers, and making her blush to find the kindling 

 rays of the great life-giver beaming brightly upon 

 her. 



The stately fast-rooted forest trees, like other 

 sedentary stay-at-home people, are all the better 

 for a good blow, a little compulsory out-of-door 

 exercise, which awakens their dormant energies, 

 long steeped in a lethargic winter sleep, and sets 

 No. 64. 



the sap flowing through their tissues, just as a 

 gallop across country sends the warm blood dancing 

 and bounding through our throbbing veins ; how 

 they sway their strong trunks this way and that 

 way, how they whirl and toss their long arms about 

 in all manner of mazy contortions, like young ladies 

 going through their "calisthenics"; it quickens 

 their pulses, it helps on and upwards the vigorous 

 flow of the vital juices, and dame Nature dons her 

 green kirtle in this merry spring-time. 



Amongst the earliest plants of our banks and 

 hedges, our young folk are sure to descry the rich 

 rank spotted sagittate leaves of the wild Artim, 

 commonly known as the Cuckoo-pint, Wake-robin, 

 or Lords-and-Ladies, the latter name being per- 

 haps that with which our young friends are most 

 familiar. Let us take our fern-trowel, and digging 

 well down into the light soft vegetable mould of 

 this steep bank in this deep old country lane, take 

 up this specimen, root and all. 



Here (fig. 6S) we have (a) the fleshy corm, which 

 we are apt to call the root ; but we must remember 

 that it is not a root, but a true underground stem. 

 Practically, a corm may be distinguished from a 

 bulb by its being solid, whereas a bulb is formed 

 of imbricated scales : the corm is known to be a 

 form of stem, by producing from its surface one or 

 more buds. This convolute leaf {b) will unrol in a 

 week or two, and display itself as a sheathing bract, 

 or spathe, enveloping the spaclLv and its remarkable 

 cluster of flowers. "The hooded spathe of the 

 order of Arads affords a character not to be mis- 

 taken, and, connected with their diclinous naked 

 flowers, gives them their most essential diagnosis : an 

 acrid principle generally pervades this Order , and 

 exists in so high a degree in some of thern as to 

 render them dangerous poisons." We might almost 

 fancy we were writing of the cobra, or the puff- 

 adder, whose spectacled hoods give them their 

 very unmistakable dingnosis, and to the spectator 



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