Flowers and Gardens 



other plants, as Lilies, Narcissuses, or 

 Violets. Now just such a healthy milk- 

 fed look, just such a sweet healthy odour, 

 is what we find in cows — an odour which 

 breathes around them as they sit at rest 

 in the pasture, and is believed by many, 

 perhaps with truth, to be actually cura- 

 tive of disease. So much, then, for the 

 name of our plant. The Hps," of 

 course, is but a general reference to the 

 shape of the petals, and indicates the 

 source of the fragrance.^ 



"Cowslips wan, that hang the pensive head," 



writes Milton in the Lycidas." But this 

 is not true. There certainly are some 

 plants in which Nature seems to hint 

 at an appearance of disease, and then 

 by some special means converts it into 

 a beauty. Take, for instance, the little 

 gland-tipped hairs which clothe the young 

 blossom-stalks of the flowering currant. 

 They look, at first sight, a little ques- 

 tionable, and we might doubt if they were 

 not something like aphides or mildew. 

 But, on examining closer, we find that 



1 [Few plant-names have been more discussed than 

 Cowslip ; but the N.E.D. has now proved that, whatever 

 the association with the animal may have been, the first 

 syllable is the Cow, and the last syllable has no connec- 

 tion with human or other lips. — H. N. E.] 



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