CLOVE PINK TRIBE 



111 



■ Say. should we ask these visitants 



Their birth-jilace and their home ; 

 If they had come to stay with us, 

 Or were again to roam ? 



' And sliould we gaze upon the rose, 



In its rich variety. 

 And ask what hand had mingled thus 

 Its graduated dye ? 



■ And who had given the luscious scent 



Which from its ambush stole, 

 Spreading luxurious iuflnence. 

 Like music, o'er the soul ? 



" Wo who had seen the stars career 

 Still in their nightly dance, 

 Should we look on these gems of eartli, 

 And say they came by chance ? 

 ' ' No, in the lily's grandeur. 

 And in the rose's hue ; 

 In the bright dahlia's gorgcousness. 

 In the violet's eye of blue ; 



" In the pencilling of the passion-flower, 

 In its deep mysterious sign — 

 All hearts would feel, all lips confess, 

 Their Maker is divine." 



The Corn Catchfly grows on sandy fields, and has been found near Bury 

 and Thetford, in Suffolk ; at Dirleton, in Haddingtonshire ; and near Sandown 

 Castle, Kent. The latter place is interesting to the botanist at the season 

 of its growth, because on this castle may be found the clove pink ; and on 

 the beach beside it, in some seasons, the sea-pea {Ldthyrus maritirims), with 

 its rich clusters of flowers, trails among the shingle. 



9. Common or Lobel's Catchfly {S. armdria). — Stem erect and 

 viscid ; petals notched, and crowned with awl-shaped scales ; calyx club- 

 shaped, and smooth ; leaves broadly lance-shaped ; panicles of flowers level 

 topped. Plant annual. This is very well known as a garden flower, its 

 handsome pink cluster expanding in July and August, and growing on a 

 stem a foot or a foot and a half high. It is now extinct as a wild flower, but 

 is retained in the list of the British Flora, from having been found on the 

 banks of the Dee, and at Yalding, in Kent, by Dr. Richardson and Mr. 

 Borrer, who considered it was naturalised on those spots. It grows wild in 

 France, Germany, and Switzerland. 



10. Night-flowering Catchfly (*S'. nodifldra). — Stem erect, many times 

 forked; calyx with long teeth, oblong when in fruit, 10-ribbed; leaves lance- 

 shaped, lower ones tapering towards the base. Plant annual. This is, too, 

 a night-scented species, opening its rather large and fragrant reddish-white 

 or yellowish flowers at sunset, and closing them by day. It is not a common 

 plant, though found on sandy and gravelly corn-fields in various parts of 

 England and Scotland. It blossoms in July and August. The stem is about 

 a foot in height, the upper part much branched, each branchlet having a 

 single flower, and one also appearing in the axil of the branch. The flower- 

 stalks are clammy. 



4. Campion {Lychnis). 



1. Ragged Robin, or Cuckoo-flower {L. flos-cuculi). — Flowers 

 loosely panicled ; petals deeply 4-cleft, crowned ; leaves very narrow. Plant 

 perennial. All dwellers in the country like well to hear the cuckoo's voice ; 

 not that his monotonous tones have a melody like the notes of the thrush, 

 for there is little real sweetness in the loud echo which they waken fi^om the 

 distant wood, now so full of the mirth and music of multitudes of singing 

 birds. But when the cuckoo's notes are sounding over hill and dell, we 

 know that summer is brightening the green earth. We hear that song while 

 budding trees and blooming flowers are around us, and from earliest times, 

 ^s our oldest English ballad proves, that voice has been welcomed. No 



