The American Cowslip. 185 



The American Cowslip, 



The genus to which this plant belongs, is in the class Pentan- 

 dria, order Monogynia. Its characters are : Calyx five-parted ; 

 corol also five-cleft, and wheel-form, reflexed ; oblong capsule, 

 one celled, opening above ; short stamens, inside the tube with 

 converging anthers ; stigma obtuse. 



Meadia's soft chains five suppliant beaux confess, 



And hand in hand the laughing belle address; 



Alike to all she bows with wanton air, 



Rolls her dark eye and waves her golden hair. Darwin. 



The petal, stamen, and the pistil trace 



Of common blossoms and of unknown race; 



The first well pleased you mark with grateful sight, 



And view the last whh hope's bewitching light. 



What sudden pleasure when some object rare, 



Confined peculiar to one soil and air, 



More precious far from expectation grown, 



By some blessed turn upon the sight is thrown. Deullk. 



The Dodecatheon Meadia — American Cowslip, is an orna- 

 mental perennial, bearing light purple flowers in May and June. 

 The leaves spring from the root, and lie flat on the ground. The 

 elegant stem of a single root of this plant rises from the centre 

 of the rosette of large leaves. It was first found by Michaux 

 in the Alleghany Mountains, and was subsequently discovered to 

 be very common in the woody country of Northern America. 

 One of our own writers compares them to a cluster of bright 

 yellow polyanthuses. Our gold Cowslips, he adds, look like a 

 full branch of large clustering king-cups ; they carelessly raise 

 themselves on their prim stalks, their corollas gazing upward to 

 the changing spring sky, as they grow amidst their pretty leaves 

 of vivid green. They adorn almost every meadow, and shed a 

 glow of beauty, wherever they spring. Phillips remarks that 

 the delight with which the botanist views a newly discovered 

 plant, can only be conceived by the students of nature ; it seems 

 to expand his ideas and give him a new conception of the wis- 

 dom of the Great Creator. He contemplates with admiration 

 the harmony of its parts which he finds so, happily adapted to 

 its native situation on the globe ; learns by the character of the 



