THE ALOE. 



and thus, pale and blanched at eventide, may be seen a group 

 of profusely blooming trees. On the ensuing morning, as if 

 refreshed by the freezing air of night, the bloom appears in rich 

 rosy garb, and retains this new adornment, — though it may 

 be in fact the decoration of death, — for a month or more, and 

 it falls only when the trees are fully clad with leafy verdure. 



THE ALOE. — Bitterness, Grief. 



De Vaillant found very many species of the Aloe in 

 the deserts of Namaquois. Some of these had leaves six feet 

 long, closely packed and armed with a long spine ; from the 

 midst of the leaves there rises a stem to the height of a tree, 

 adorned with flowers throughout. Others grow like the 

 Cactus, bristling with spines ; while some, again, are spotted, 

 and have the appearance of serpents creeping upon the earth. 

 Brydone says that the city of Syracuse was, as it were, 

 covered with large Aloes in bloom ; their beautiful and elegant 

 stems giving to the headland above the beach the semblance 

 of an enchanted woodland. 



The Aloe is an extensive genus of exotics, comprising 

 trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants. The collection at the 

 Museum de Paris is said to be the finest in the world. The 

 Aloe thrives well with us, but chiefly, if not entirely, as a 

 denizen of the greenhouse. These magnificent, not to say 

 monstrous, members of the vegetable kingdom, are for the 

 most part natives of barbarous Africa. There they flourish 

 among rocks, in arid sands, in the glowing atmosphere which 



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