150 LETTER XL. 



The ingenuity of the fair sex has not failed to profit by 

 these qualities, for the Tartar ladies, availing them- 

 selves of the acrid property of the Daphne leaves, rub 

 them over their cheeks instead of rouge, to raise a 

 gentle colour in the skin. 



All this while I am talking of these plants as if you 

 knew them, and 1 think it impossible but some of them 

 must have been already seen by you. Spurge Laurel 

 is a common evergreen in shrubberies, with deep green, 

 shining leaves, little pale green flowers, almost con- 

 cealed by the leaves, and black drupes resembling 

 those of the common Laurel (Prunus Laurocerasus) 

 externally. 



Still more common is Mezereum, and much more 

 strikino- for it bears its rose-coloured or white flowers 

 upon naked branches late in autumn or early in the 

 spring, and at that time there is no shrub that at all 

 resembles it. We will take this species for examina- 

 tion. The rosy flowers do not owe their colour to the 

 presence of petals, but are merely composed of a calyx 

 {Plate XLL 1. fig. 2.), having four spreading lobes 

 half-united in a tube, hairy externally and slightly 

 pitted all over the inner surface. This arises from 

 the looseness of the parenchyma which connects the 

 two surfaces of the calyx, and which is so easily dis- 

 turbed, that you may without difficulty separate the 

 Avhole of the inner from the whole of the outer surface, 

 dividing the calyx into two cups. Hence it has been 

 thought by some, that in reality the calyx and corolla 

 are really both present in Daphne, but naturally 

 glued together. Such an opinion is however neces- 



