2§2 B<M Flowers. 



Flow like decaying life they seem to glide, 

 And yet no second spring have they in store ; 

 But where they fall, foigotten to abide 

 In all their portion, and they ask no more 



Kebbi. 



Bell Flowers, 



Lindley observes, that the modest beauty of the Bell flow- 

 ers amply recompenses us for the absence of the gaudy scented 

 and often venomous flowers of more southern climates ; and 

 that in this plant we find a representative of an extensive 

 natural order, the species of which are scattered over all 

 Europe, and the cooler parts of Asia and America, dwelling 

 in dells and dingles, by the banks of rivers, in shady groves 

 on the sides of mountains, and even on the summit of the 

 lower Alps, where the last lingering traces of vegetation strug- 

 gle with an atmosphere, that neither plant nor animal can well 

 endure. We know the Harebell tribe only in its humblest 

 state, bedecked with no other ornament than a few puqrie or 

 nodding flowers ; but in foreign countries it acquires a far 

 more striking appearance. On the mountains of Switzerland, 

 there are species with corollas of pale yellow, spotted with 

 black ; on the Alps of India, are others. of the deepest purple 

 that can be conceived ; on the rocks of Madeira, lives one 

 which was formerly not uncommon in our gardens, whose 

 corollas are of a rich golden yellow ; and finally, in the pas- 

 tures of the Cape of Good Hope, are Roellas, the flowers of 

 which are elegantly banded with streaks of violet or rose, 

 passing into white. In every grassy lane there grows a dimi- 

 nutive herb with little grassy leaves, and a few bell-shaped 

 nodding flowers ; this is the real Harebell — Campanula 

 Rotundifolia. Some will wonder why it is so called since 

 its leaves are narrow like those of a grass ; but if pulled up 

 by the roots, the lowest of all the leaves will be found to have 

 a roundish outline, from which circumstance it derives its 

 name. The calyx of the plant has five deep divisions, which 



