30 LETTER XXVIII. 



The last case has served to shew you another in- 

 stance, in addition to those you are already acquainted 

 with, of plants, apparently very dissimilar, being in 

 reality near relations, and that it is only to Botanists 

 that the links which hold together what is, not very 

 correctlv, called the mig-htv chain of the creation, are 

 perceptible. It will not be uninteresting to take this 

 opportunity of making you acquainted with a highly 

 curious natural order, which, ^\'ith far more apparent 

 resemblance to the Pittosporum tribe than the Vine, 

 has in reality a much more distant relationship. 



On heaths, and sunny knolls, and on many a naked 

 down all over England, is found a pretty little herb, 

 with exquisitely curious tiny blossoms of blue, or white, 

 or pink, which modestly peep up from the turf that che- 

 rishes them. They call it Milkwort {Plate XXVIII. 

 2.). The ancients fancied that it, or some such plant, 

 possessed the property of increasing the quantity of 

 milk in the cows that fed upon it ; hence its name. 

 One never sees it cultivated in gardens, and yet it is of 

 an exceedingly beautiful, and most curious structure ; 

 but its flowers are so small that aU which is most 

 admirable in it is overlooked by the incurious observer, 

 and larger foreign species, chiefly from the Cape of 

 Good Hope, are nursed in greenhouses in its room. 

 Our Milkwort (Polygala vulgaris), has weak rambling 

 stems from two to eight inches long, clothed with 

 minute, oval, sharp-pointed, deep green leaves, and 

 terminated by a short raceme of flowers. These have 

 so very uncommon a form that I must describe them 

 more particularly than usual. 



