THE GARDEN OF CYRUS 103 



art, yet is it not also destitute of natural examples ; 

 and, though overlooked by all, was elegantly observable, 

 in several works of nature. 



The same is observably effected in the j'ulus, catkins, 

 or pendulous excrescencies of several trees ; of walnuts, 

 alders, and hazels, which hanging all the winter, and 

 maintaining their network close, by the expansion 

 thereof are the early foretellers of the spring : dis- 

 coverable also in long pepper, and elegantly in the 

 jiilus of calamus aromatlcus, so plentifully growing with 

 us, in the first palms of willows, and in the flowers of 

 sycamore, petasites, asphodelus, and b/atfaria, before 

 explication. After such order stand the flowery 

 branches in our best spread verbascum, and the seeds 

 about the spicous head or torch of thapsus barbatus, in 

 as fair a regularity as the circular and wreathed order 

 will admit, which advanceth one side of the square, 

 and makes the same rhomboidal. In the squamous 

 heads of scabious, knapweed, and the elegant jacea 

 pinea, and in the scaly composure of the oak rose which 

 some years most aboundeth. After this order hath 

 nature planted the leaves in the head of the common 

 and prickled artichoke, wherein the black and shining 

 flies do shelter themselves, when they retire from the 



