1 68 THE TRAVELLER'S JOY. 



The RANUNCULACE^E also include the Black Hellebore, or 

 Christmas rose (Helleborns niger\ one of our most splendid 

 winter-garden decorations, whose juice the ancients considered 

 a wonderful remedy for mental disorders. In whiteness it 

 rivals the snow, which often accumulates around it, and the 

 snow-drop, which is frequently bound up in the same wreath. 

 It is called the Black Hellebore, to distinguish it from the 

 two wild species which grow in our woods, its root being 

 covered with a thick black skin. 



The fragrant white Clematis must not be omitted j its starry 

 drops are " things of beauty," which every true poetic eye will 

 know how to appreciate. It is sometimes called " Traveller's 

 Joy," and sometimes " Virgin's Bower j " either name is richly 

 suggestive of pleasant fancies. Do you remember the beauti- 

 ful picture in Keats's " Endymion," of the shady sacred retreat 



where Adonis lay and slumbered ? The clematis was one of 







the precious flowers that adorned it : 



" Above his head 



Four lily stalks did their white honours wed, 

 To make a coronal, and round him grew 

 All tendrils green, of every bloom and hue, 

 Together intertwined and trammelled fresh ; 

 The vine of glossy sprout, the ivy mesh, 

 Shading its Ethiop berries, and woodbine, 

 ,Of velvet leaves and bugle blooms divine ; 

 Convolvulus in streaked vases blush, 

 The creeper mellowing for an autumn flush, 

 And Virgin's Bower trailing airily, 

 With others of the sisterhood." 



Finally, our order comprises the Hepatica, with its blue or 



