78 PROSERPINA. 



7. I said in my inaugural lectures at Oxford, 

 § 107, that real botany is not so much the 

 description of plants as their biography. Without 

 ■entering at all into the history of its fruitage, the 

 life and death of the blossom itself is always an 

 eventful romance, which must be completely told, 

 if well. The grouping given to the various states 

 •of form between bud and flower is always the 

 most important part of the design of the plant ; 

 and in the modes of its death are some of the 

 most touching lessons, or symbolisms, connected 

 with its existence. The utter loss and far-scattered 

 ruin of the cistus and wild rose, — the dishonoured 

 and dark contortion of the convolvulus, — the pale 

 wasting of the crimson heath of Apennine, are 

 strangely opposed by the quiet closing of the 

 brown bells of the ling, each making of themselves 

 a little cross as they die ; and so enduring into the 

 days of winter. I have drawn the faded beside 

 the full branch, and know not which is the more 

 beautiful. 



8. This grouping, then, and way of treating 

 each other in their gathered company, is the first 

 and most subtle condition of form in flowers ; and, 

 observe, I don't mean, just now, the appointed 

 and disciplined grouping, but the wayward and 

 accidental. Don't confuse the beautiful consent of 



