iSo Hillside. 



Spell proof he bear, like the brave St. Clare, 

 The holy Trefoil's charm." 



The name Trifolium is well applied to these plants, the 

 three little leaflets which help to form the compound leaf 

 being very characteristic of the clover gi*oup of leguminous 

 plants. Both the species of trefoils named above have their 

 champions, who support one or other of the species as the 

 real shamrock, and a census has recently been taken in the 

 various Irish counties as to which species is in most 

 general use as the shamrock. In several counties both 

 T. repens and T. minus are used indiscriminately, in others, 

 only T. minus, whilst in those of the western sea-board, 

 where old-fashioned Irish ideas and customs still most 

 largely prevail, T. repens is most in vogue. There is con- 

 siderable difference between the two plants that thus dis- 

 pute the palm for pre-eminence, but it would appear that by 

 those who are sufficiently well educated to know that there 

 are more trefoils than one, the smaller- leaved T. minus is 

 usually chosen, and the absence of the white and black 

 markings which usually occur on the foliage of T. repens is 

 a sine qud non with such, when choosing their sprig of 

 shamrock. Possibly, as these species are so closely allied 

 botanically, both have been long used under the popular 

 name ; in any given district that species which is more 

 abundant there, being probably used more generally than the 

 rarer. At any rate, both species appear now to be in, what 

 may be termed, general use, and both equally do duty as the 

 " shamrock of old Ireland." 



Now we will go back to our old spot under the hazel-bush, 

 and watch the sun gradually sink, and the western horizon 

 gradually assume its rainbow tints. The lovely crimson 



