120 



" It farre exceedeth my skill to describe the beauty and 

 excellencie of this rare plant, called F lor amor ; and I 

 thinke the pensil of the most curious painter will be at a 

 stay, when he shall come to set it downe in his lively col- 

 ors. But to colour it after my best manner, this I say, 

 Moramor hath a thicke, knobby root, whereon do grow 

 many threddie strings ; from which ariseth a thicke stalke, 

 but tender and soft, which beginneth to divide itself into 

 sundry branches at the ground, and so vpward, whereup- 

 on doth grow many leaves, wherein does consist his beau- 

 ty : for in few words, euerie leafe resembleth in colour 

 the most faire and beautifull feather of a Parot, especially 

 those feathers that are mixed with most sundry colours, 

 as a stripe of red, and a line of yellow, a dash of white, 

 and a rib of green colour, which I cannot with words set 

 forth, such are the sundry mixture of colours that I^ature 

 hath bestowed, in her greatest jolitie, vpon this floure. 

 The floure doth grow betweene the footstalks of those 

 leaves and the body of the stalk or trunk, base, and of no 

 moment in respect of the leaves, being as it were little 

 chaffie husks of an ouerworne tawny colour ; the seed is 

 black, and shining like burnished home." 



A. hypochondriacus. — Prince's Feather. — A hardy, 

 Avell-known annual, four or five feet high, with numerous 

 heads of purplish-crimson flowers, suitable for the shrub- 

 bery. A. superhus is an improved variety of this ; flowers 

 dark-red ; three to four feet high ; from June to September. 



A. melancbolicus. — Love-lies-bleeding. — This is also a 

 well-known hardy annual, from three to four feet high, 

 with blood-red flowers, which hang in pendant spikes, 

 and, at a little distance, look like streams of blood ; in 

 July and August. It is sometimes called, in France, 

 *' Discipline des rdigieuses^'' — the Nun's Whipping Rope. 

 There is a variety, with straw-colored flowci-s, but it is 

 too mean-looking for the flower-garden. 



