THE HERB-ROBERT. 



, Geranium Robertianum. Nat. Ord., 

 Geraniacece. 



ERB-ROBERT (Geranium Ro- 

 bertianum] is perhaps the com- 

 monest and, at the same time, the 

 most graceful plant of a genus 

 that contains several species, 

 many of which are common, and 

 almost all of them attractive, both 

 in form and colour. 



The meaning of the name is 

 (juite lost; various guesses have been 

 made as to who this Robert was, and 

 why the herb should have been thus dedi- 

 cated to him, but all attempts to arrive 

 at a satisfactory conclusion are vain. Some sup- 

 pose that it is so called from St. Robert, a Benedictine 

 abbot to whom the twenty-ninth of April is dedi- 

 cated, as the Herb-Robert is then about coming into 

 flower. Careful observations en the flowering of our 

 various plants have been made for over nine years by a 

 local natural history society of which we are one of the 

 members, and we find from the records kept that the 

 earliest date at which the plant has been found in flower is 

 the 27th of April; the latest, May the 4lh ; the average 

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