IV. GIULIETTA. 91 



presumably characteristic forms belong to the Cape ; and 

 only since Mr. Fronde came back from his African ex- 

 plorings have I been able to get any clear idea of the 

 brilliancy and associated infinitude of the Cape flowers. 

 If I could but write down the substance of what he has 

 told me, in the course of a chat or two, which have been 

 among the best privileges of my recent stay in London, 

 (prolonged as it has been by recurrence of illness,) it 

 would be a better summary of what should be generally 

 known in the natural history of southern plants than I 

 could glean from fifty volumes of horticultural botany. 

 In the meantime, everything being again thrown out of 

 gear by the aforesaid illness, I must let this piece of 

 4 Proserpina ' break off, as most of my work does and as 

 perhaps all of it may soon do leaving only suggestion 

 for the happier research of the students who trust me 

 thus far. 



11. Some essential points respecting the flower I shall 

 note, however, before ending. There is one large and 

 frequent species of it of which the flowers are delicately 

 yellow, touched with tawny red, forming one of the chief 

 elements of wild foreground vegetation in the healthy 

 districts of hard Alpine limestone.* This is, I believe, 



* In present Botany, Polygala Chamaebuxus ; C. 316 : or, in Eng- 

 lish, Much Milk Ground-box. It is not, as matters usually go, a name 

 to be ill thought of, as it really contains three ideas ; and the plant 

 does, without doubt, somewhat resemble box, and grows on the 

 ground; far more fitly called 'ground -box' than the Veronica 



