xviii 



FLORA ODORATA 



which Xatm^e has adorned them, and these sweet attributes 

 are incomparably the most precious mth which it is our 

 fortune to be favoured. 



* Soft roll your incense, herbs and flowers, 

 In mingled clouds to Him whose sun exalts, 

 Whose breath perfumes you and whose pencil paints/' 



— THOMSON. 



The great botanist Linna?us grouped the odours of flowers 

 and plants into seven classes, three of which only were 

 pleasant : to these he signified the titles of the aromatic, the 

 fragrant, and the ambrosial. All plants, whether in their 

 foliage or blossom, exhale an odour more or less perceptible, 

 more or less agreeable ; some flowers possess such a powerful 

 aroma as to influence the state of the atmosphere over large 

 areas. The hundreds of scented acres in the South of France 

 permeate with their sweet odours the balmy breezes wafted 

 from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea for many miles : 

 the same effects are perceptible off the Spanish Coast, where 

 large quantities of Eosemary are grown, and so it is with 

 many daintily scented trees that flourish in the AVest Indian 

 Islands; who, too, in oiu own country has not felt the influ- 

 ence of the fragrance lavishly dispensed by a field of Beans 

 in bloom, a Heather-clad hill, or a Furzy down, where all 

 the little hillocks are purple with the flowers of the wild 

 Thyme, which exhales its rich aromatic odour when pressed 

 with the foot, an avenue of Limes on a showery summer 

 evening, or a country lane in May, when the Hawthorn is 

 covered with snowy blossoms ? 



Again, our senses are daily gratified by the sweet perfumes 

 exhaled by the leaves and flowers that surround us, and art 

 exhausts its skill to preserve them by means which enable 

 us always to have them present for use. The state of the 



