USE IN MANUFACTURES. 35 



Bateman and Dr. Lindley, dedicated to this class of 

 plants. It is well known how contemporaneous was 

 the cultivation of flowers and manufactures in some 

 of our large cities (at Norwich, for instance, where 

 the taste yet survives, and where there is a record of 

 a flower-show being held so early as 1687) the 

 flowers which the foreign artisans brought over with 

 them suggesting at the same time thoughts of years 

 gone by and designs for the work of the hour. Our 

 new schools of design might literally take a leaf 

 and a flower out of the books we have mentioned, 

 and improve our patterns in every department of art 

 by studying examples of such exquisite beauty, 

 variety, and novelty of form and colour as the tribe 

 of orchideous plants affords. 



Another class of plants, very different from that 

 just mentioned, to which we would call the attention 

 of designers, is that of the Ferns. Though too com- 

 monly neglected by the generality, botanists have 

 long turned their researches towards this extensive 

 and elegant class. These humble denizens of earth 

 can boast their enthusiasts and monographists, as 

 much as the pansy or the rose ; nor has the exquisite 

 tracery of their fronds escaped the notice of the artist 

 and the wayfarer. But few, perhaps, even of those 

 who have delighted to watch the crozier-like germ 

 of the bracken bursting from the ground in spring, 

 and the rich umber of its maturity among the green 

 gorse of autumn, are aware that Britain can produce 

 at least thirty-six distinct species of its own, with a 

 still greater number of subordinate varieties ; these, 



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