OF FLOWERS. 293 



MIGNONETTE. Your qualities much surpass vour appearance. 

 It is a depressed little Egyptian plant, with unpretending 

 flowers, but a universal favorite on account of its delightful 

 fragrance. 



MISLETOE. You are as mean as you are indolent. It is a 

 parasite which never derives its nourishment from the earth, 

 and which it never touches, but lives and grows on some 

 other plant. 



MIMOSA. Your irritability hides your other qualities. The 

 sensitive plant is provided with fibres, which, like the 

 muscles of animals, contract under irritation. Hence the 

 limbs of this plant shrink from examination, and its leaves 

 fold themselves together on the slightest touch. 



NARCISSUS. Egotists are agreeable only to themselves. This 

 unhappy youth, happening to see his own face in a foun- 

 tain, died of love for himself. 



" Himself alone the foolish youth admires, 

 And with fond look the smiling shade desires. 



* * * * 



Let vain Narcissus warn each female breast, 

 That beauty 's but a transient good at best." 



NASTURTION. Darkness flees at your approach. During 

 the warmest, and darkest nights, little coruscations of 

 electrical light may be seen flashing from the petals of this 

 flower. This curious fact was first observed by the 

 daughter of Linnaeus. 



NETTLE. The pain you inflict is not easily cured. The 

 sting of the Nettle, like that of the bee, is furnished with 

 a little sack, which contains a poisonous fluid, and which 

 is forced out as the point passes the skin. The poison is 

 therefore left in the flesh, in some persons producing seri 

 ous evil. 



NIGHTSHADE. The emblem of death. Atropa, the botani- 

 cal name of this plant, was one of the Fates, whose busi- 

 ness and pleasure it was to cut the thread of human life. 

 The plants are of a murky green, with red berries, growing 

 in dark, shady places, as though watching for their prey 

 The army of Sweno, the Dane, when he invaded Scotland, 

 is said to have been cut off by means of this plant. 



OAK. Thou art honorable above all others. Among the 

 Romans, the civic crown, formed of oak leaves, was the 

 most exalted honor the nation could confer. 



OLIVE. At thy coming peace and joy prevail. The olive 



