54 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



larise its charms, we would point at once to the delicate 

 green of its foliage, clothing with its verdant mantle 

 many a spot that would else be bare. 



The moschatel should be sought for in woods, on hedge- 

 banks overhung with trees, and generally in shady places. 

 Though the plant is small, the large masses in which it 

 grows give a welcome clothing to many a spot that offers 

 in its damp and dimly-lighted recesses little or no 

 inducement to anything else. In such spots the refined 

 and delicate forms of the moschatel, or the glossy leaves 

 and multitudinous golden stars of the lesser pile wort, find 

 a congenial home. The rich form of the leaves is no less 

 beautiful than their delicate colour ; and whatever commen- 

 dation either of form or tint may be bestowed on the foliage 

 is no less the due of the clustering ring of blossoms. The 

 moschatel should be looked for in the situations we have 

 indicated during April and the beginning of May ; after 



which it 



" Melts in unperceived decay, 

 And glides in modest innocence away." 



The order to which the plant belongs is in Britain 

 represented by only two genera, and each of these consists 

 with us of but a single species. The little inconspicuous 

 moschatel and the much better known ivy are the only 

 representatives we possess of this order, though abroad it 

 contains many and various plants, from forest trees to 

 wayside herbs. It would, of course, be foreign to our pre- 

 sent purpose to indicate how it conies to pass that plants 

 so apparently unlike as the present species and the ivy 

 should have got into close companionship, or how it is that 

 they alone represent a great natural order to us. To make 

 this clear, would necessitate more technical description 



