The Wallflower. 149 



The Wallflower. 



There are about ten species of this plant well known in the 

 United States ; most are, however, exotics. It is in the class 

 Tetradynamia, order Siliquosa, which class has the advantage of 

 forming a perfectly natural as well as artificial order; the generic 

 name was derived by Linnaeus from the Arabic Keiri, and means 

 a hand-flower. Its characters are: Germ with a glandulous 

 toothlet on each side ; calyx closed, with two leaflets gibbous at 

 the base; seeds flat. Specific character: leaves lanceolate, acute, 

 smooth, subserrate ; stem shrubby. The Cherianthus Cheri — 

 Wallflower, is a great favorite, as much so perhaps as any 

 of the species. Phillips, from whom we have drawn largely, 

 remarks that, in floral language, the Wallflower stands as the 

 emblem of fidelity in misfortune, because it attaches itself to the 

 desolate, and enlivens the ruins which time and neglect would 

 otherwise have rendered terrible. It hides the savage strokes of 

 feudal times on the castle walls, fills the space of the wanted 

 stone on the mouldering church, and wreathes a garland on the 

 crumbling monument no longer noticed by friendly relatives. 



For this obedient zephyrs bear 



Their light seeds round yon turret's mould, 



And undisturbed by tempests there 

 They rise in vegetable gold. 



Langhornk. 



It is the flower with which romance writers embellish all their 

 decaying battlements, falling towers and monastic ruins; and it 

 Beems as necessary to their stones, as the dark ivy, the screeching 

 owl, and the gliding spectre itself. 



Who loves my flower, the sweetest flower 

 That swells the golden breast of May, 

 Thrown rudely o'er this ruined tower, 

 To waste her solitary day 1 



Why when the mead, the spicy vale, 



The grove, and genial garden call, 



Will she her fragrant soul exhale 



Unheeded by the lonely wall 1 Langhorke. 



During the reign of terror in France, the misguided populace 



