The Forget-me-not. 25 



the sylvan forget-me-not, the flowers of an azure that 

 seems sucked from heaven itself. People confound it 

 sometimes with the germander-speedwell, another lovely 

 flower of May and June. But the leaves of the speed- 

 well are oval instead of long and narrow, like those of 

 the forget-me-not; and the flowers are not only of quite 

 a different shade of blue, but composed of four distinct 

 pieces, the forget-me-not being five-lobed, and yellow in 

 the centre. The consummate distinction of the forget- 

 me-not is the mode in which the flowers expand, and 

 which, along with its unique and celestial tint, is the true 

 reason of its being used as the emblem of constancy. 

 Possibly enough, the pathetic legend of the knight and 

 the lady by the water-side may have had a fact for its 

 basis, but the flower was representative of constancy long 

 before the unlucky lover met his death. The world, 

 truly seen and understood, is but another showing forth 

 of human nature, an echo of its lord and master, reitera- 

 ting in its various and beautiful structures, colours, and 

 configurations, what in him are thoughts and passions, 

 and in the forget-me-not we have one of the foremost 

 witnesses. This is no loose and misty speculation; but 

 to the earnest student of nature who looks below the sur- 

 face of things, a determinate and palpable fact, the 

 source of the most fascinating pleasures that connect 

 themselves with the genuine knowledge of plants and 

 flowers, and of the objects of nature universally. The 

 peculiarity referred to consists principally in the curious 

 spiral stalk, and the store of secret buds, a new flower 



