80 PIlOSERPItfA. 



the twelve, or sixteen, or twenty, acknowledged families, 

 thoroughly ; and only in their illustration to think of 

 rarer forms. The object of 'Proserpina' is to make him 

 happily cognizant of the common aspect of Greek and 

 English flowers ; under the term ' English,' comprehend- 

 ing the Saxon, Celtic, Korman, and Danish Floras. Of 

 the evergreen shrub alluded to in 11 above, the Ve- 

 ronica Decussata of the Pacific, which is " a bushy ever- 

 green, with beautifully set cross-leaves, and white blos- 

 soms scented like olea fragrans," I should like him only 

 to read with much surprise, and some incredulity, in 

 Pinkerton's or other entertaining travellers' voyages. 



16. And of the families given, he is to note for the 

 common simple characteristic, that they are quatrefoils 

 referred to a more or less elevated position on a central 

 stem, and having, in that relation, the lowermost petal 

 diminished, contrary to the almost universal habit of 

 other flowers to develope in such a position the lower 

 petal chiefly, that it may have its full share of light. 

 You will find nothing but blunder and embarrassment 

 result from any endeavour to enter into further particu- 

 lars, such as " the relation of the dissepiment with respect 

 to the valves of the capsule," etc., etc., since " in the 

 various species of Veronica almost every kind of dehis- 

 cence may be observed " (C. under V. perfoliata, 1936, 

 an Australian species). Sibthorpe gives the entire defi- 

 nition of Veronica with only one epithet added to mine, 

 " Corolla quadrifida, rotata, lacinia infima angustiore," 



