THAT'S IT; 



valley, 9, to the gorgeous specid- 

 sum, 10, with its spotted reflexed 

 petals and prominent stamens and 

 pistil. The lily of the valley is 

 considered a distinct species, of 



In 



839. 



which there are three interesting 

 varieties : the common, the red- 

 flowered, and the double. The 

 name is derived from the situation 

 in which the lily naturally flou- 

 rishes. We obtain several of our 

 interesting varieties of the lily 

 from China, the Levant, North 

 America, the Pyrenees, the Cau- 

 casus, China, and Dauria. 



n 12 



840. 



Few plants present so many 

 interesting varieties as heaths, 11, 

 12. Mrs, Loudon has described 



nearly three hundred species. 

 Their various forms of growth 

 and flowering are graceful and 

 elegant, and some kinds are ex- 

 ceedingly curious. As mosses 

 and lichens play an important 

 part in giving tone and colour to 

 the landscape, so do heaths, in 

 the open countries where they 

 abound. They are arranged in 

 the botanical genus erica, from a 

 Greek word meaning to break, on 

 account of the brittleness of their 

 branches. 



Though little regarded in warm climates, the 

 different species of erica are made subservient 

 to a great variety of purposes in northern coun- 

 tries. The poorer inhabitants cover their cabins 

 with them, instead of thatch, or twist them 

 into ropes, and bind down the thatch with them 

 in a kind of lattice-work. They also make the 

 walls with alternate layers of heath, and a 

 sort of cement of black earth and straw. In 

 Scotland the Highlanders make beds with it, 

 and dye yarn of a yellow colour by boiling it 

 with heath-tops and flowers; they also brew 

 ale, with one part malt and two parts of the 

 young tops of heath. A beverage was also made 

 of heath by the Picts, ancient inhabitants of 

 parts of Scotland. Turf, with heath growing 

 among it, is used as f del by the cottager. The 

 branches of heath afford shelter, and the seeds 

 a principal part of their food, to many birds ; 

 bees collect largely from the flowers : the honey, 

 though dark in colour, being peculiarly rich in 

 flavour.* 



The colours of the flowers are 

 very various, some of the tinted 

 ones being peculiarly delicate and 

 waxen. In form they are either 

 bell-shaped, tubular, globular, or 

 pitcher-shaped ; and the flower- 

 heads exhibit all the various 

 typical forms, with occasional 

 modifications. 



Among flowering shrubs rho- 

 dodendrons are remarkably at- 

 tractive. The name is derived 

 from two Greek words, meaning 

 a rose and a tree, and refers to the 

 rose-like appearance of the groups 

 of flowers, 13. Many of them 

 have been obtained from North 



* Loudon's Encyclopaedia of Plant*. 



