254 BORAGINE^ 



Many botanists have agi^eed with the remark of the late Mr. Loudon, 

 that this is the most beautiful of all the lovely wild flowers which 

 our country can boast. There will always, however, be a difference of 

 opinion in matters like these ; and so long as early memories can find their 

 sway in the heart of man, various flowers Avill be i-egarded as the loveliest. 

 Some verses which Mary Isabella Tomkins has written for our volume in 

 praise of flowers will, however, find a response in the breasts of all who 

 love them : — 



''A song of praise — in praise of flowers, from one who loves them well, 

 And joys to see them springing free in many a lonesome dell ! 

 Sweet are they, sweet as childhood's smiles, welcome as boyhood's mirth, 

 The fairest, aye, and brightest things yet found upon the earth. 



" I care not cultured flowers to seek ; the simple and the mean. 

 The star-like daisy at my feet, the green grass stems between. 

 Is quite enough to stir my heart, and wake my humble powers, 

 To celebrate right gratefully God's goodly gift of flowers. 



"They tell of one* who wander'd in a desert drear and lone. 

 Heart-sick and weary with, long toil, uncheer'd by friendly tone ; 

 With nought of comfort in his heart, nor hope he could descry. 

 And strong the evil thought within, to murmur and to die. 



"When, lo, a tiny flower he saw, the capsule of a moss 

 That clothed a rock, flung carelessly his very path across : 

 Strange was the transport that it caused— his waken'd heart rose free, — 

 ' The God who makes yon little flower, will surely care for me.' 



"Oh flowers, pleasant flowers, your beauty and your grace 

 Art strives in vain to imitate, defeated in the race ; 

 Fit playthings ye for childhood's years, fit gems for ladies' bowers, 

 Right gratefully, right lovingly, I sing the gift of flowers." 



The plant grows most frequently on banks, chalky hills, or sea-cliffs ; but 

 it also, in Cambridgeshire and some other counties, grows among the corn. 

 We have looked on its luxuriance in the corn-fields of that county, where it 

 rises to a great height, but we never saw it superior in size, or equal in rich- 

 ness of hue, to the plant as it grows on the cliffs of Dover. It is there in 

 great profusion, often covering large masses of the chalky soil. AVe have 

 gathered from these cliffs specimens three feet and a half high, with the 

 blossoms occupying a foot and a half of its upper portion. The spotted stem 

 indicated to the men of other times that the Bugloss had been especially 

 created to cure the bites of the speckled viper ; and its seeds, shaped as they 

 fancied like a viper's head, confirmed the promise of the stem. The flowers 

 were considered cordial and refreshing, and, according to Parkinson, they 

 were mingled with that of the borage, and were candied by gentlewomen into 

 comfits. The plant grows in our country on sandy as well as on chalk or 

 limestone soils ; and Dr. Asa Gray, in his " Notes of a Botanical Excursion 

 to the Mountains of Carolina," found that it had introduced itself in the 

 extensive valley of Virginia most abundantly, along with another plant 

 which is often its companion in Britain, the wild marjoram. " From the 

 moment we entered the valley," says this writer, " we observed such immense 

 quantities of Echium viilgare, that we were no longer surprised at the doulit 

 expressed by Dr. Pursh, whether it were really an introduced plant. This 

 'wild foreign weed,' as Darlington, agriculturally speaking, terms this showy 

 plant, is occasionally seen along the roadside in the Northern States ; but here, 



' Mungo Park. 



