70 IV/LD. OR NATIVE FLOWERS. 



it is a pretty idea, and it may be a fact, though not as yet a fully 

 established one. I think it is Professor Lindley who has recorded the 

 circumstance in his " Natural System of Botany," from the observation 

 of some French naturalist. 



Enchanter's Night-shade — Circcea alpuici, (L.) 



With so ominous a name we might naturally expect to find some 

 sad, lurid-looking, poisonous weed or sombre-leaved climber, instead ot 

 a very delicate, innocent-looking, leafy plant, with thin, light-green 

 foliage, and tiny white or pale pink blossoms, dotted with minute spots 

 of pale yellow, something like the old garden plant London Pride. One 

 can hardly imagine so inoffensive a little flower being introduced by the 

 ancient Sybils into connexion with their unholy rites, nor understand 

 why its classical name, Circcva, after a horrible old enchantress, should 

 have been retained by our modern botanists. 



We often wonder at the Greek names given to plants which are 

 indigenous to other climes than Greece, and are retained even where 

 the significance is so obscure as to be questioned by our botanical 

 writers. It is these hard classical names that frighten youthful students, 

 especially young ladies, who are only too glad when they can meet with 

 names of flowers that give them an insight into the appearance and 

 qualities of the plants, by which they can be easily recognized. 



Imagination loves to get a glimpse at the poetical in the names of 

 flowers, giving a charm to what is dry and uninteresting in our botanical 

 books : something that gives us an insight into the history of the flower 

 we study, beyond the mere structure and definition of its parts. I 

 remember an old gardener (he was by no means an ignorant man) once 

 said, " Oh ! madam, in these days they turn poor Poetry out of doors, 

 but in the olden time it was not so, for it was the language in which 

 God spake to man through the tongues of ongels and prophets. Aye, 

 and it was the language in which even sinful man spake in prayer to 

 his Maker : but now they only use hard words for simple things, such 

 as the flowers of the field and the garden; or the talk is about gold, and 

 the things that gold purchases ! " 



Spreading Dogbane [Indian Hemp.] Apocymim and7-0sa;mifoliu»i, (L.) 



This pretty pink-flowered plant is also known by the name of Shrubby 

 Milkweed, from the abundance of acrid milky juice that pervades the 

 stem, branches and leaves. 



The flowers of this plant are very unlike those of the Asclepiadacece ; 

 but it belongs to a closely allied order, and possesses some of the 

 characteristics of that remarkable order of plants in which the deadly 



