198 Floivers and their Pedigrees. 



instructive histories among all the annals of English 

 plants. In a comparatively short space of time they 

 have managed to assume the most varied forms ; and 

 their numerous transformations are well attested for 

 us by the great diversity of their existing representa- 

 tives. Some of them have produced extremely beau- 

 tiful and showy flowers, as is the case with the cultivated 

 roses of our gardens, as well as with the dog-roses, 

 the sweet-briars, the may, the blackthorn, and the 

 meadow-sweet of our hedges, our copses, and our 

 open fields. Others have developed edible fruits, like 

 the pear, the apple, the apricot, the peach, the nectar- 

 ine, the cherr}', the strawberr>^ the raspberrj', and the 

 p'um ; while yet others again, which are less service- 

 able to lordly man, supply the woodland birds or even 

 the village children with blackberries, dewberries, 

 cloudberries, hips, haws, sloes, crab-apples, and rowan- 

 berries. Moreover, the various members of the rose 

 family exhibit almost ever)' variety of size and habit, 

 from the creeping silver-weed which covers our road- 

 sides or the tiny alchemilla which peeps out from the 

 crannies of our walls, through the herb-like meadow- 

 sweet, the scrambling briars, the shrubby hawthorn, 

 and the bushy bird-cherry, to the taller and more 

 arborescent forms of the apple-tree, the pear-tree, and 

 the mountain ash. And since modern science teaches 



