STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 



seed of the wild vines of that land of the east into which 

 Adam and Eve were banished? 



Travellers in Palestine still speak of the luxuriant grape- 

 vines flinging their clusters of fruit and sweet-scented 

 blossoms over the terraced steps of rocky ravines, filling 

 the air with perfume; but the vines are all wild now and 

 uncultivated. They want the careful hand of the vine- 

 dresser and husbandman to train them type of the wasted 

 inheritance of the ancient people and of a degenerated 

 priesthood. 



Has the Christian Church no careless vine-dressers; are 

 there no vines bringing forth wild grapes; no briars and 

 thorns that come up to choke the Lord's vineyard, till it 

 becomes an unfruitful wilderness? 



BLACK HAWTHORN PEAR THORN Cratcegus tomentosa 



(L.). 



Canada has many species of Hawthorn, but not the frag- 

 rant flowering May of the English hedgerows, associated in 

 the minds of Old Country people with the pleasant spring 

 days and bowery lanes of their childhood, when, as old 

 Herrick tells us, " Maids went maying." But even now in 

 Merrie England the May-queen's reign is over, in spite of 

 poets' songs. 



LAMENT FOB THE MAY-QUEEN. 



No maiden now with glowing brow 



Shall rise with early dawn, 

 And bind her hair with chaplets rare 



Torn from the blossomed thorn. 



No lark shall spring on dewy wing 



Thy matin hymn to pour, 

 No cuckoo's voice shall shout ' Rejoice ! ' 



For thou art Queen no more. 



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