THE POLIANTHES. 



So while the poet stood in this sweet spot, 

 Some fainter gleamings o'er his fancy shot ; 

 Nor was it long ere he had told the tale 

 Of young Narcissus, and sad Echo's vale." 



Shelley, admiring the flower, wrote, 



"And Narcissi, the fairest among them all — 

 Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess, 

 Till they die of their own dear loveliness ! " 



THE POLIANTHES {P. ^2^fewj-«).— Voluptuousness. 



This beautiful and most odoriferous flower, commonly 

 known as the Tuberose, and which is calculated to please 

 all, was brought from Persia in 1632. It flowered for the first 

 time in France, at M. de Peiresc's, at Beaugencier, near Toulon. 

 The flower was then single ; but its petals became double 

 after some time, under the careful hand of Lecour, of Leyden. 

 From that place it spread every where. In Russia it blooms 

 only for royalty, and those who come near the court. It is 

 naturalized in Peru ; there it grows without culture, and com- 

 bines with the brilliant capucin to decorate the fair American. 

 The Tuberose, that superb native of the East, which the illus- 

 trious Linnaeus has named Polianthes, from the abundance of 

 its flowers, a flower worthy of cities, has become with us, as 

 it is in Persia, the emblem of Voluptuousness. A young 

 Icoglan, who receives from the hands of his mistress a stem 

 of the Tuberose in bloom, experiences supreme happiness ; 



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