CORA AND KRONO& 143 



general part or power in the colors of mountain ground ; but, 

 examined closely, they are one of the chief joys of the trav- 

 eller's rest among the Alps ; and full of exquisiteness un- 

 speakable, in their several bearings and miens of blossom, so 

 to speak. Plate VIII. represents, however feebly, the proud 

 bending back of her head by Myrtilla Regina : * an action 

 as beautiful in her as it is terrible in the Kingly Serpent of 

 Egypt 



3. The formal differences between these three families are 

 trenchant and easily remembered. The Ericse are all quatre- 

 foils, and quatrefoils of the most studied and accomplished 

 symmetry ; and they bear no berries, but only dry seeds. 

 The Myrtillse and Aurorse are both Cinqfoil ; but the Myrtillse 

 are symmetrical in their blossom, and the Aurorse unsym- 

 metrical. Farther, the Myrtillse are not absolutely determi- 

 nate in the number of their foils, (this being essentially a char- 

 acteristic of flowers exposed to much hardship,) and are thus 

 sometimes quatrefoil, in sympathy with the Ericse. But the 

 Aurorse are strictly cinqfoil. These last are the only Euro- 

 pean form of a larger group, well named ' Azalea ' from the 

 Greek da, dryness, and its adjective daAe'a, dry or parched ; 

 and this name must be kept for the world-wide group, (in- 

 cluding under it Rhododendron, but not Kalmia,) because 

 there is an under-meaning in the word Aza, enabling it to be 

 applied to the substance of dry earth, and indicating one of 

 the great functions of the Oreiades, in common with the 

 mosses, the collection of earth upon rocks. 



4. Neither the Ericse, as I have just said, nor Aurorse bear 

 useful fruit ; and the Ericse are named from their consequent 

 worthlessness in the eyes of the Greek farmer ; they were 

 the plants he ' tore up ' for his bed, or signal-fire, his word 

 for them including a farther sense of crushing or bruising 

 into a heap. The Westmoreland shepherds now, alas ! burn 

 them remorselessly on the ground, (and a year since had 

 nearly set the copse of Brantwood on fire just above the 

 house.) The sense of parched and fruitless existence is 



* "Arctostaphylos Alpina," I believe ; but scarcely recognize the 

 flower in my botanical books. 



