xii. THE AMARANTH. 207 



leaved than that of moist, cool climates ; but many of 

 them are easily cultivated in our own country, and are 

 very extensively grown in Southern France and Ger- 

 many, from whence immense quantities are sent to our 

 large London warehouses. All over the Continent they 

 are used for bouquets, wreaths, or for general floral 

 decorations. From France and Germany we have 

 learned the custom of laying wreaths and crosses made 

 of them upon the coffins and graves of the dead ; and 

 that custom now very widely prevails in this country. 



Many of the everlastings cultivated in our green- 

 houses are strikingly beautiful. They belong chiefly 

 to the composite family. The French immortelle with 

 small yellow flowers, of which the chaplets used at 

 Pere la Chaise are made, is furnished by Helichrysum 

 vrientale, a native originally of Crete and South Africa, 

 but now largely cultivated in the south of France in 

 the neighbourhood of Hyeres, entirely for the sake of 

 its flower-heads. Various other species of Helichrysum 

 from Australia and South Africa have flower-heads an 

 inch across, varying in colour from white to yellow, 

 orange, crimson and pink, some annual and others 

 perennial. On our dry moorlands and hillsides an 

 everlasting grows in great quantities, with silvery 

 foliage and little tomentose balls of flowers of a pure 

 white or a pale pink colour. It is known by the 

 name of the Catspaw or Mountain Everlasting. And 

 on the summits of our highest hills a tiny species of 

 cudweed forms, on the bare tempest-beaten turf, a 

 knot of leaves, out of which emerges a pale brown 



