200 PROSERPINA. 



to Linnaeus, I adopt this for the total name of 

 the order, and call them 'Ophrydae,' or, shortly, 

 ' Ophryds.' 



8. Secondly : so far as I know these flowers 

 myself, I perceive them to fall practically into 

 three divisions, — one, growing in English meadows 

 and Alpine pastures, and always adding to their 

 beauty ; another, growing in all sorts of places, 

 very ugly itself, and adding to the ugliness of 

 its indiscriminated haunts ; and a third, growing 

 mostly up in the air, with as little root as 

 possible, and of gracefully fantastic forms, such 

 as this kind of nativity and habitation might 

 presuppose. For the present, I am satisfied to give 

 names to these three groups only. There may 

 be plenty of others which I do not know, and 

 which other people may name, according to their 

 knowledge. But in all these three kinds known 

 to me, I perceive one constant characteristic to 

 be some manner of distortion ; and I desire that 

 fact,— marking a 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, 

 primarily, 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 some- 



