1862.] BOTANICAL NOTES^ NOTICES^ AND QUERIES. 125 



Ovid again, in the first fable of the tenth book, enumerates the trees 

 which formed a grove about the celebrated musician Orpheus, when lie 

 went to the world below to recover Eurydice : 



" NoH Chaonis ahfuit arhos, 

 Non nemus Heliadum, non frondibtis esculis alt is, 

 Nee tilice vwlles, necfagus, et INNUBA laurus." 

 " Nor trees of Chaony (Chaonian Oaks), 

 Nor Heliau grove, nor foodful Esculus, 

 Nor Linden soft, nor smooth-rinded Beecli, . 



Unmarried Bays, the brittle Hazel, 

 Ash, whose spears we praise, 

 Were absent." 



Apollo loved Daphne, but she did not reciprocate his affection, and 

 hence she is represented by the poets as being unmarried, or dying un- 

 wedded. This poetic fiction is periiaps the origin of the epithet " unmar- 

 ried," applied to ])lants which love the shade, which the Primrose does and 

 which the Cowslip does not, or the latter loves less to blush unseen than 

 the former does. 



The physical or actual history of the economy of the Primrose points 

 to the same fact ; its shade-loving propensity is the origin of the term 

 " unmarried," so far as it is applicable to this early flower. 



The whole Primrose tribe, though not shy fiowerers, are not very pro- 

 ductive of fruit. This is the case with most plants which increase readily 

 by the roots. Tiie Primrose and Oxlip readily increase their radical 

 crowns ; and when nature is prodigal in one extremity she is occasionally 

 economical in the opposite direction of the plant. 



The early-flowering Primroses rarely produce seed ; they flower abun- 

 dantly, but are like many plants which can live in the open air in England 

 but never flower for want of sudicient light and heat, so early-flowering 

 plants of this genus rarely produce seeds. Late-fiowering Primroses 

 mature the contents of their capsules. 



The Primrose loves a cool shaded situation under a hedge, on the verge 

 of a ditch, or in sheltered parts of woods. Here, like Daphne, they escape 

 the fervent attentions of Apollo, and the consequence is they die unmar- 

 ried, as Shakspere says, or they go to their graves unblest by any pledges 

 of the warm attachment which generally exists between Phoebus and his 

 numerous paramours. 



The fiction, or fablg, or common saio is poetical, but, like many other 

 productions of the imagination, it may originally have derived its being 

 from the natural circumstances and accidents of these plants. 



The International Exhibition. 



African Vegetable Products. — The first packages which were 

 delivered were from Liberia, the colony of liberated blacks ; and some 

 interest is attached to these unpretending-looking packages of Palm-oil 

 and other articles of native produce, on account of their being the first 

 arrivals. In this respect the lil)erated negroes contrast most favourably 

 with the free and enlightened Ilepublic which at one time held them in 

 bondage. The Northern States of America have declined to send anything 



