In My Vicarage Garden 



enclosed in a hard shell, as in plums and cherries, 

 the fleshy part of the fruit is wholesome and 

 refreshing, but in the kernel and in the leaves 

 there is a large quantity of prussic or hydrocyanic 

 acid. This mixture of wholesomeness and un- 

 wholesomeness in the same plant was a great 

 puzzle to the old herbalists ; but the\- could not 

 resist the fact, and Friar Laurence, in his pleasant 

 moralising on the virtues of plants, did not pass 

 this by : — 



" Within the infant rind of this small flower 

 Poison has residence and medicine power ; 

 For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part ; 

 Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart." 



And then he pleasantly traces the analogy of good 

 and evil in us, " in man as well as herbs, grace and 

 rude will." 



Space forbids m\- going much further into this 

 question, but I must name, though very shortly, 

 two more families, which I can scarcely pass by 

 altogether, for they stand out from all other 

 botanical families by the large number of the 

 species they contain, and by the strong characters 

 which so easily distinguish them from all other 

 plants. The two families I mean are the com- 

 positae and gramineae. The merest tjTO in 

 botany knows the general appearance of a com- 

 posite plant, of which the daisy, the dandelion, 

 and the groundsel are such familiar instances ; 

 but the most learned botanist will confess that 

 the family is full of puzzles and difficulties, which 

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