CLASS HEXAXDRIA. 87 



divergent, and attached to the base of the segments 

 of the corolla. The most common species is the 

 C. racemosa, rather a large plant, with broad, plaited, 

 or. strongly nerved, sessile, pubescent leaves, and 

 paniculated or compounded racemes of greenish white 

 flowers. This species flowers about June. 



The next section, or genus, is the Polygonatum, 

 or true Solomon's Seal, which has a G-cleft, cylindric, 

 unexpanding corolla ; and the filaments attached to 

 the upper part of the tube ; the berry perfect or 3- 

 celled, the cells 2-seeded. These plants have the 

 leaves permanently inclined to 2 sides of the stem ; 

 and the flowers, 2 or more together, growing nearly 

 all the way up the stem in the axil of the leaves. 

 The flowers are greenish white, and appear about 

 June or July. The shoots of the large species, 

 C. multiflora, are sometimes eaten as Asparagus. 



The earliest harbinger of spring in Europe and the 

 United States,* is the Snowdrop, or Galanthus ni- 

 valis, belonging also to this showy class of flowers, so 

 finely described by Mrs. Barbauld. 



As nature's breath, by some transforming pow'r. 

 Had chang'd an icicle into a flow'r. — 

 Its name and hue the scentless plant retains, 

 And winter lingers in its icy veins. 



It begins often to grow beneath the snow, at a tem- 

 perature scarcely removed from the freezing point, 

 and flourishes alone, while all other plants lie dormant. 

 The French, in allusion to this remarkable precocity 

 of appearance, term it expressively " perce-neige." 



* The small, but elegant flowered, umbelliferous plant, which 

 I hence named Erigenia (or harbinger of spring), is about as early 

 as the Snowdrop, flowering in the shady woods of Pennsylvani, 

 and Ohio from the 12th to the 20th of March. 



