a 
in preparation, e in e wil 
quite easy. Mark “here how considerately 
510 FALE 
GARDENERS’ 
CWRON TOEF. 
[OCTOBER 24, 8 
their enjoyments. On October to there were in 
bloom at Clevedon no fewer than sixty-eight 
different kinds of wild flowers. Conspicu 
among them were the Herb Robert, the lilac 
Scabious, the Cinquefoil, and the Corn Poppy, 
the Yellow Toadflax, the Fumitory, the Bladder 
Campion, the Milfoil, the white Dead Nettle, 
and the Vervain Sage; while here and there 
appeared the grand flowers of the Centaurea 
Scabiosa, the delicate little lilac crosses of the 
Sherardia, and the azure of the Veronica Bux- 
baumii ; the Red Valerian and the Pellitory 
of course i 
. ese are plants which beginners 
generally “leave to another time.” 
season the hay-fields 
are in preparation, everything « 
and the Trisetum flavescens ; while, for the ex- 
perienced, it is very interesting to observe how 
often a grass may now be found in the vivi- 
parous condition. Not the quasi-viviparous, 
caused by 1 
Wheat, 'but the dond Jide viviparous, which 
-Itt the space of an hour the other day I 
~ 
| remar 
upon another besetting difficulty with young 
: k 
This consists in the 
distinction ) iferæ. Nearly all 
the text-books lead off with the peculiarities of 
i in- which, without a doubt, 
hen, as must needs be the case, the 
only in flower, say in May 
too commonly gets ignored, though in no family 
is the structure more curious, while the species 
may now be collected ; 
day in question, there’ were 
ua 
and lower halves correspond to the 
(differences. For want of it- 
| none excelling in sym 
bit of leafage that we thought was done 
with till another year. In no instance perhaps 
is this more striking than that of the tufted 
Dimple Wort—if I may be allowed thus to 
re-christen the Cotyledon Umbilicus, the objec- 
tionable old name of which, in the vernacular, 
was imposed when men were not particular as 
to delicacy of terms, and which ought now to be 
disused. October is naturally a time for fruits 
rather than for flowers, a circumstance which 
plenty, and particularly in the Linnzan genera 
Stachys and Lamium, there is no period when the 
very curious fourfold ovary is more intelligible, 
The “four naked seeds” so-called are particu- 
larly obvious in the Stachys sylvatica and in 
the Salvia verbenaca, both of 
produce their fru 
dust has got in, so as to 
cause pain, the mucus catches the culprit, and 
both come out at once. 
How beautiful again the wild capsules in 
October! Leading the wa an 
ie) 
an 
[an 
) with tiny sepulchral urns. But the 
gem of all is the pyxid of the Pimpernel, or 
Shepherd’s Weather-glass, one of those charm- 
ing little annuals which, though they come first 
in the middle of summer, remind us now, in the 
fall, of the encores given to favourite singers. 
The jewelled beauty of this lovely little plant, 
the scarlet. Pimpernel, places it quite in the van 
of English wild flowers. It is unique, moreover, 
in the spherical capsule, for though pyxid 
are found likewise in the Plantains, there is 
, 
globular, and when mature, 
opens by a line of 
cence so exactly eq i 
t the upper 
fraction of 
a hair’s breadth. They say that when renowned 
Helen rambled up and down the earth in search 
of a model fora cup of perfect symmetry, in 
the which, when discovered, she should offer 
her oblations to the gods, she found nothing 
that would compare with her own bosom,’ The 
meaning of this beautiful fable is obviously 
that, for the worship of our Heavenly Father, 
there is nothing better or so good as a pure and 
reverent heart. en I contemplate this little 
Pimpernel capsule, I cannot but fancy, 
pce that Helen somehow overlooked it 
. 
ILIU 
pentagons of various Ch 
maritima. Just as in the Gaultheria, and many 
- another plant of far nobler pretensions, the fruit 
is here enclosed and protected by the enlarged 
and succulent perianth, which in the Suzeda 
resembles five little green beads placed in a 
ring—the rich chestnut-coloured achenium, 
burnished like the nut of the 4Esculus, lying 
the How odd that 
ever- | 
those of the Suseda 
good among 
dee it to be, since mora 
fou abreast of clear 
how deeply it is embedded among the 
scales which compose the- Principal. po 
Beautiful below Clevedon, bety 
then gives one quite the idea of reposing sunljsty 
r plant, which, like the Pimps 
in October comes out afresh, is the 
Mercurialis annua, not 
either, since in Lancashire and Chesh 
i Call it a weed if you 
note it as the only example I am a quai 
with of a true and genuine trimerous 
The liliaceous flowers, ordinarily so styled, 
not trimerous but hexamer He 
erous, 
the contrary, we have 
Mark, li 
odour of the flowers in the male plant. They 
emit a scent almost exactly like that of honey, — 
and which, if a specimen be laid between 
papers to press for the herbarium, continues for 
nearly a week, after the manner of that of the 
Oleaster, Elæagnus angustifolia, the perfume ol 
which lingers till the piece is 
corollas, as customary withethis sin 
displayed in patches, as if there were 
about the place to give proper instru 
to proceed. Spring Buttercups, too, were 
ful, with relics of Galium verum, and o 
self-retrievment, and they set an example 
to the point than a thousand exhortations. ya 
Well did that excellent philosopher, © 
have 
1 truth 1s 5 
and a: 
phenomena. Nature is always 
the 
thing already in our 
memorial of the past—it is saturated 
p the future, and for our 
