RED VALERIAN. 



In our own national history, the union of the Red Rose and 

 the White, is the emblem of a return to that state of feeling 

 which ought to exist among all mankind, and especially 

 among those of the same race and nation. Long had the 

 two Roses represented the rival houses of York and Lan- 

 caster, each anxious to do battle to the death, each burning 

 with hatred to the other, until a better mind came, when the 

 two combined worked together for the good of the Common- 

 wealth. Wordsworth sings of this happy change, 



" The Red Rose is a gladsome flower. 

 Her thirty years of winter past, the Red Rose is revived at last ; 

 She lifts her head for endless Spring, for everlasting blossoming ; 

 Both Roses flourish, Red and White ; in love and sisterly delight, 

 The two that were at strife are blended, and all old troubles now are 

 ended." 



RED VALERIAN (Valeriana montand). — Readines.s. 



This species of Valerian has been brought from Switzer- 

 land within a hundred years. Its attire is bright, but always 

 lax. This mountain child retains, amid our cultivated flowers, 

 her rustic bearing, which imparts the air of a parvenu. This 

 wild beauty owes her good fortune to merit ; the root is a 

 remedy for those maladies which engender feebleness ; an 

 infusion of the plant strengthens the sight, revivifies the 

 spirits, and drives away melancholy. The flowers continue 

 to bloom for a long time. Cultivation improves the flower, 

 but the plant does not despise its origin, for it abandons our 

 borders to dwell on the side of a dry hill, or on the top of 



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