STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 



it for support, which its rough teeth enable it to do very 

 effectually; in habit it resembles the smaller Galium, 6r 

 Lady's Bed-straw. The graceful bell-shaped flowers are of 

 a delicate lavender color. The leaves of this species are 

 narrow-linear, rough with minutely-toothed bristles; the 

 flowers are few and fade very quickly. The name Cam- 

 panula is a diminutive from the Italian campana, a bell. 



The Harebell has often formed the theme of our modern 

 poets, as illustrative of grace and lightness. In " The Lady 

 of the Lake " we have this pretty couplet, when describing 

 Ellen : 



" E'en the light harebell raised its head 

 Elastic from her airy tread." 



YELLOW-FLOWERED WOOD-SORREL Oxalis stricta (L.). 



This delicate little flower may be found occasionally by 

 the wayside, but is oftener seen among the herbage near 

 the borders of cultivated fields. The trifoliate leaves are 

 terminal on longish footstalks, thin in texture, and of a 

 pleasant acid taste. At sunset, like the clover and other 

 trefoils, it droops and folds its leaflets together to sleep, 

 for some plants rest as in sleep. This Wood-sorrel is some- 

 what branching and bushy; the pale yellow blossoms are 

 on long stalks, fading very soon. There is also another 

 species Oxalis Acetosella (L.) white with purple vein- 

 ings, a lovely delicate thing of great beauty, which is 

 found on damp mossy banks at the edge of low pastures. 

 It has been asserted by some persons that the Wood-sorrel 

 is the Irish Shamrock, the emblem of the Holy Trinity; 

 but it is more likely, if St. Patrick really used any plant 

 as a simile, that he took the familiar golden-blossomed 

 trefoil Yellow Clover, which is tlje Shamrock which grows 

 so abundantly in Ireland by waysides.* The Wood-sorrel is 

 of rarer occurrence and of less familiar appearance. 



* St. Patrick is said to have plucked the tiny leaves to explain how one could be three. 



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