52 GARDEN FLOWERS. 



over witli a mealy powder. In the garden the 

 darker kinds have visually more or less of this 

 white powder on their blossoms, and some- 

 times, too, on their foliage, as Thomson de- 

 scribes them — 



" Auriculas enriched 

 With sliining meal o'er all their velvet leaves." 



The expressed juice of the leaves of the 

 auricula, was, in former days, a valued medi- 

 eine ; and Ray gravely says of it, that if min- 

 gled with the milk of a red cow, it will cure 

 the most intense headache. 



A pretty lloAver, called Greek valerian, (Po- 

 lemoiiium reptans^) is already in bloom. It has 

 light blue flowers, and is a native of America. 

 A much more frequent kind is the species 

 generally called Jacob's ladder, (^Polemonium 

 ccendeum,) which blooms "in almost every gar- 

 den in the month following this. It has numer- 

 ous blossoms, either of a light blue, or varying 

 in aU the shades of blue and bluish white, to a 

 pure snow-white tint. This flower is in Staf- 

 fordshire called charity ; and the familiar name 

 of Jacob's ladder was probably suggested by 

 the form of its leaves, which consist of a num- 

 ber of leaflets, opposite to each other, on the 

 stem, and not unlike steps. This was sufficient 

 to lead our forefathers to adopt it as an emblem 

 of something scriptural, at a period Avhen monks 

 and fi-iars were the chief cultivators of plants, 

 and the great discoverers of their virtues. The 

 ancient writers held in great repute a plant 

 which they termed polemo?iium. The name is 



