Nature, in fact that parent of all things, has produced no 

 animated being for the purpose solely of eating ; she has willed 

 that it should be born to satisfy the wants of others, and in its 

 very vitals has implanted medicaments conducive to health, 

 . . Cato has recommended that flowers for making chap- 

 lets should be cultivated in the gardens : varieties remarkable 

 for delicacy, which it is quite impossible to express, inasmuch 

 as no individual can find such faculties for describing them as 

 Nature does, for bestowing on them their numerous tints. 

 Nature, who here in especial shows herself in a sportive mood, 

 takes a delight in the prolific display of her varied productions. 

 The other plants she has produced for our uses and our nutri- 

 ment, and to them accordingly she has granted years, and even 

 ages, of duration ; but as for the flowers and their perfumes, 

 she has given them birth for but a day— a mighty lesson to 

 man, we see, to teach him that that which in its career is most 

 beauteous and most attractive to the eye is the very first to fade 

 and die. 



Even the limner's art possesses no resources for reproducing 

 colors of the flowers in all their varied tints and combinations, 

 whether we view them in groups alternately blending their 

 hues or whether arranged in festoons, each variety by itself. — 

 Pliny, Natural History (23-79 a.d.). 



240 



