386 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



protected by this bitter taste, and being without a poisonous 

 quality, have more of that sort of vitaUty which enables them 

 to recover from the effects of severe browsing at any season 

 of the year. 



There is another fact which is worthy of remark. When 

 the fields and meadows in summer are full of gaudy flowers, 

 we find some species growing in the shade of woods, and 

 under the cover of thick shrubbery. Such is the sweet py- 

 rola. Nature has given to this delicate flower, that hides 

 its drooping blossoms under the foliage of the sweet gale and 

 the panicled andromeda, the delicious odor of cinnamon. This 

 species is white, and bears its flowers in a spike with their 

 disk turned downwards. The more elegant and showy flow- 

 ers of the Pyrola umbellata, on the other hand, that turn their 

 disks upward, and are not concealed under the foliage of 

 shrubs, being more conspicuous, are accordingly deprived of 

 the fragrance of their kindred species. The same principle 

 is extended to the shrubs : while the magnificent clusters of 

 the mountain laurel are almost without scent, the less showy 

 and white flowers of the azalea are very fragrant. Hence, 

 too, the Canadian rhodora, whose brilliant lilac flowers are 

 rendered more conspicuous by appearing before their leaves are 

 out, is less odorous than the Alder-leaved clethra, whose 

 blossoms might escape notice, when buried under the mass of 

 foliage that is peculiar to the later summer when they are 

 out. 



To this theory of mine there is an apparent exception in 

 the flowers of the grasses, which are neither beautiful nor 

 odorous. But nature has formed the grasses in such a man- 

 ner as to render them independent of the services of insects 

 for promoting their fertilization. She has caused them to 

 spring up in dense masses, and elevated the flowers on long 

 and slender stems, which are readily moved to and fro by the 

 winds, and constantly brought into contact with one another. 

 To render this process the more certain, the flowers of grasses 

 are unprovided with a corolla, which would interfere with 

 this amalgamating process, and nature has suspended the 

 powdery anthers outside of the glumes, so that the stamens 



