PUEPLE 

 LOOSE-STEIFE. 



Zy thrum Salicaria. Nat. Ord. , Lythracea. 

 LMOST every one who has any 

 experience of the country will 

 have noticed the beautiful pur- 

 ple spikes of flowers which the 

 purple loose-strife so plentifully 

 throws up during the latter part 

 of summer, and which render it 

 so conspicuous an ornament on 

 the banks of rivers and ponds. 

 We have often wondered that 

 our landscape painters have not 

 more extensively availed them- 

 selves of such characteristic wild 

 growths as the present to give an 

 added charm to their work, and 

 furnish it with another proof of its 

 truthfulness to nature. The water- 

 lilies, both yellow and white, and the 

 great reeds and bulrushes are often introduced, and the 

 fine large leaves of the butterbur are given very effec- 

 tively ; but we can only recall a very few instances of the 

 introduction of the graceful and brilliantly-coloured purple 

 loose-strife into representations of the tangled mass of 

 vegetation that fringes the stream. The necessarily small 

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