STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 
it for support, which its rough teeth enable it to do very 
effectually; in habit it resembles the smaller Galiwm, or 
Lady’s Bed-straw. The graceful bell-shaped flowers are of 
a delicate lavender color. The leaves of this species are 
narrow-linear, rough with minutely-toothed bristles; the 
flowers are few and fade very quickly. The name Cam- 
panula is a diminutive from the Italian campana, a bell. 
The Harebell has often formed the theme of our modern 
poets, as illustrative of grace and lightness. In “The Lady 
of the Lake” we have this pretty couplet, when describing 
Ellen: 
“¢ B’en the light harebell raised its head 
Elastic from her airy tread.” 
YELLOW-FLOWERED WOOD-SORREL—Owalis stricta (L.). 
This delicate little flower may be found occasionally by 
the wayside, but is oftener seen among the herbage near 
the borders of cultivated fields. The trifoliate leaves are 
terminal on longish footstalks, thin in texture, and of a 
pleasant acid taste. At sunset, like the clover and other 
trefoils, it droops and folds its leaflets together to sleep, 
for some plants rest as in sleep. This Wood-sorrel is some- 
what branching and bushy; the pale yellow blossoms are 
on long stalks, fading very soon. There is also another 
species—Owalis, Acetosella (L.)—white with purple vein- 
ings, a lovely delicate thing of great beauty, which is 
found on damp mossy banks at the edge of low pastures. 
It has been asserted by some persons that the Wood-sorrel 
is the Irish Shamrock, the emblem of the Holy Trinity; 
but it is more likely, if St. Patrick really used any plant 
as a simile, that he took the familiar golden-blossomed 
trefoil Yellow Clover, which is the Shamrock which grows 
so abundantly in Ireland by waysides.* The Wood-sorrel is 
of rarer occurrence and of less familiar appearance. 
*St. Patrick is said tv have plucked the tiny leaves to explain how one could be three. 
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