SPRING FLOWERS. 



cumstance of their flowers having four equal petals arranged 

 in opposite pairs so as to form a cross. The group may be 

 known by this circumstance, and by having six stamens, two 

 shorter than the rest. This Cruciferous Order, besides being 

 an extensive one, is important, containing, amongst other 

 subjects of utility, the whole Cabbage family. 



To the same Order belongs the Wallflower,^ " grey ruins' 

 golden crown," a flower well known in every garden, and 

 prized for its delicious fragrance, found here and there in a 

 wild or semi- wild state on walls and old buildings, or in rocky 

 situations, generally near habitations. In the Wallflower we 

 have a plant of subshrubby growth, furnished with simple 

 leaves, and its yellow or reddish-bronzy flowers are succeeded 

 by what are called siliquose pods containing the seeds, as is 

 also the case with the Ladies' -smock. In both these plants 

 the inflorescence or collection of flowers forms a kind of co- 

 rymb in the earlier stages, lengthening out by degrees into a 

 more or less elongated raceme. This flower has been made 

 the emblem of friendship in adversity, because, though Time, 

 the rude and sacrilegious despoiler of consecrated places, may 

 waste and overthrow the structures of the past, and leave them 

 uninhabited, the Wallflower, " mantling o'er the battlement," 

 still lends a melancholy grace " to haunts of old renown." 



And then, who does not know the Violet,t the ver}'^ emblem 

 and personification of sweetness — sweeter, as Shakspere says, 

 than "Cytherea's breath"? This lovely plant is common on 

 banks and under hedges, a dwarf herb, with heart-shaped 

 leaves and polypetalous flowers, which, " kissed by the breath 

 of heaven, seem coloured by the skies." They are of a dis- 

 tinct type from any of the foregoing, and have a separate 



* Cheiranthus Cheiri — Plate 1 D. 

 t Viola oJora/rt —Plate 2 A. 



