XT. GENEALOGY. 181 



spiritual (in my sense of the word) character of extreme 

 mystery, to be the first enforced on the mind of the 

 young learner. It is exhibited to the English child, pri- 

 marily, in the form of the stalk of each flower, attaching 

 it to the central virga. This stalk is always twisted once 

 and a half round, as if somebody had been trying to 

 wring the blossom off ; and the name of the family, in 

 Proserpina, will therefore be 4 Contort a ' * in Latin, and 

 4 Wreathe-wort ' in English. 



Farther : the beautiful power of the one I have drawn 

 in its spring life, is in the opposition of its dark purple 

 to the primrose in England, and the pale yellow anemone 

 in the Alps. And its individual name will be, therefore, 

 4 Contorta purpurea ' Purple Wreathe-wort. 



And in drawing it, I take care to dwell on this strength 

 oAits color, and to show thoroughly that it is a dark blos- 

 som, f before I trouble myself about its minor characters. 



9. The second group of this kind of flowers live, as I 

 said, in all sorts of places ; but mostly, I think, in disa- 

 greeable ones, torn and irregular ground, under alterna- 

 tions of unwholesome heat and shade, and among swarms 

 of nasty insects. I cannot yet venture on any bold gen- 

 eral statement about them, but I think that is mostly 

 their way ; and at all events, they themselves are in the 



* Linnaeus used this term for the oleanders ; but evidently with less 

 accuracy than usual. 



f " dyO?; KoptyvpoeidTj" says Dioscorides, of the race generally ; but 

 " uvOrj d vTroKopfvpa" of this particular one. 



