21 8 PROSERPINA. 



IV. Oreiades. — Described in next chapter. 



v. Pleiades.— From the habit of the flowers 

 belonging to this order to get into bright local 

 clusters. . Silvia, for the wood-sorrel, will I hope 

 be an acceptable change to my girl-readers. 



VI. ARTEMIDES. — Dedicate to Artemis for their 

 expression of energy, no less than purity. This 

 character was rightly felt in them by whoever 

 gave the name ' Dianthus ' to their leading race ; 

 a name which I should have retained if it had 

 not been bad Greek. I wish them, by their name 

 ' Clarissa,' to recall the memory of St. Clare, as 

 * Francesca ' that of St. Francis.* The ' issa,' not 

 without honour to the greatest of our English 

 moral story-tellers, is added for the practical 

 reason, that I think the sound will fasten in the 

 minds of children the essential characteristic of 



* The four races of this order are more naturally distinct than 

 botanists have recognized. In Clarissa, the petal is cloven into a 

 fringe at the outer edge ; in Lychnis, the petal is terminated in two 

 rounded lobes, and the fringe withdrawn t,o the top of the limb ; 

 in Scintilla, the petal is divided into two sharp lobes, without any 

 fringe of the limb ; and in Mica, the minute and scarcely visible 

 flowers have simple and far separate petals. The confusion of these 

 four great natural races under the vulgar or accidental botanical 

 names of spittle-plant, shore-plant, sand-plant, etc., has become 

 entirely intolerable by any rational student ; but the names ' Scintilla,' 

 substituted for Stellaria, and ' Mica ' for the utterly ridiculous and 

 probably untrue Sagina, connect themselves naturally with Lychnis, in 

 expression of the luminous power of the white and sparkling blossoms. 



