62 FLOWERS AND FRUITS. 



diminish, it becomes less branching and more erect, the flowers, in 

 common with all cultivated ones, change their threads or filaments 

 into blossom leaves, the whole increasing in size, and the plant 

 altered in every respect vies in beauty and portliness with any 

 thing in our shrubberies. 



Its sweet red, sometimes beautifully shaded with clear white 

 flowers, make their appearance in the months of June and July, 

 and these are succeeded in the autumn by the scarlet, egg-shaped, 

 berries, sometimes rough, but more often smooth and shining, and 

 which continue during the winter as valuable an ornament, accord- 

 ing to the opinion of some, at that season as at any other. As we 

 have mentioned, it is generally found in rocky and dry, sandy 

 grounds, sometimes in the fields and by the road sides. In floral 

 language it is the emblem of GENIUS, from the beauty and 

 fragrance of its flower, and the long continuance as well as equal 

 beauty of its fruit. Wordsworth, makes it say to the waterfall; 



"You stirred me on my rocky bed, 

 What pleasure through my veins you spread, 



The summer long from day to day. 

 When spring came on, with bud and bell, 



Among these rocks did I, 

 Before you hang my wreaths, to tell, 



That gentle days were nigh. 

 And in the sultry summer hours, 

 J sheltered you with leaves and flowers, 

 Though now of leaf and flower bereft, 

 Some ornaments to me are left ; 



Rich store of scarlet hips is mine, 

 ( With which I in my humble way, 



Would deck you many a winter's day, 



A happy eglantine.' ; 



