LETTER XXXII. 



THE LYTHRUM TRIBE THE ROCK-ROSE TRIBE 



MODE IN WHICH THE CONTENTS OF THE POLLEN- 

 GRAINS ARE CONVEYED TO THE OVULE. 



(Plate XXXII.) 



In marshes, meadows, by the side of ditches, and, 

 generally, in wet places, there grows a flower which, if 

 it were brought from a distant country, reared in a 

 hothouse, cultivated with difficulty, and sold at a great 

 price, would be the pride of a collector, and the 

 admiration of the crowd that is ever searching for new 

 objects of amusement ; for, proudly raising above the 

 neighbouring grasses its long leafy rods, loaded with 

 purple flowers, it stands confessed the undisputed 

 queen of the meadows. But Lythrum — for such is 

 its name — is only a wild flower ; it may be had any 

 where in autumn for the gathering ; it associates with 

 the sedge, and the meadow-grass, and ignoble weeds, 

 and so, it is neglected, except by the few — are they 

 indeed the few ? — who love beauty for its ovni sake, 

 and prize our fair native wild flowers, as much as 

 costlv strangers, which are onlv to be reared bv wealth 

 and skiU, and which often owe their charms to the 

 adventitious circumstances that surround them. 



This plant has a hairy four-cornered stem, about 



F 2 



