182 LETTER XLIV. 



fresh honey** (I quote Dr. Roxburgh's words), open 

 at the close of day, and fall off before sunrise, strewing 

 the ground with their remains, and furnishing to the 

 Indian girls the materials with which they decorate 

 their hair. After the flowers have passed away, this 

 tree becomes ragged and shabby, assuming a melan- 

 choly appearance, as if in grief for the loss of the 

 fragrant treasures that it once dispensed with so 

 lavish a hand. This circumstance, and the dark hours 

 of night which the plant selects for displaying its 

 charms, have doubtless given it the name of Arbor 

 tristis, or the tree of mourning. It is known bota- 

 nically from a Jasmine, by its fruit being a dry seed- 

 vessel, instead of a succulent berry. 



You may well be puzzled with the plant enclosed 

 in your letter of yesterday ; and you are right in 

 your conjecture that it is not even alluded to, in any 

 part of our previous correspondence. It is the Pink 

 Asclepias (Asclepias incamata), and forms the type of 

 the Natural Order of that name. Its flowers are most 

 curiously constructed, and may well embarrass you 

 even to name the parts of which they consist. After 

 you have received this letter, gather a fresh cluster 

 of the blossoms, and follow me in the ensuing descrip- 

 tion. 



In gathering it, you will find milk flow abundantly 

 from the wound ; in this plant the milk is white, but 

 in one species inhabiting the woods of Sierra Leone, 

 it is of the colour of blood. If that plant had but 

 grown in Palestine, it might be supposed to represent 



