Perennial. — Flowers from May to September. 
Root composed of many branching, whitish fibres. Stems 
branched, leafy, square, smooth, red and pellucid, from 6 to 18 
inches or more long, trailing on the ground, and throwing out roots 
from the lower joints ; often pendant from banks and rocks. Leaves 
opposite, on short, broadish petioles ; egg-shaped, pointed, entire, 
veiny, of a bright shining yellowish-green, rather succulent. 
Peduncles ( flower-stalks ) solitary, axillary, single-flowered, round, 
slender, smooth, longer than the leaves, bent, or twisted, after 
flowering. Calyx of 1 sepal, divided almost to the base into five 
narrow, awl-shaped, smooth, single ribbed, segments. Corolla 
divided beyond the middle into five segments, which are fringed 
with minute glandular hairs. Stamens yellow, quite smooth, rather 
thickest in the middle (see fig. 5). Capsule globular, of 10 narrow 
valves, united in pairs. Seeds angular. 
An elegant plant, and not unfrequent in most parts of Britain, 
France, and Germany, in moist woods, and wet shady places. It 
is found in several places about Oxford ; as on the north side of 
Shotover Hill ; also in Stow Wood ; Bagley Wood ; and Headington 
Wick Copse ; generally, however, near the margins of springs and 
small rivulets, whose banks it enlivens, in the Summer months, with 
its glossy green leaves, and its delicate and bright yellow flowers, 
which, when fully expanded, somewhat resemble those of the 
common Pimpernell, (t. 29.), and hence the older Botanists con- 
sidered it as an Anagallis. 
THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY * 
“ Go forth to the woods, and tread the green dell. 
For the Spirit of Beauty is there ; 
You will see her fair form in the snow-drop’s white bell, 
Y’ou will hear her sweet voice in the air. 
1 have been to the woods, I have trod the green dell. 
And the Spirit of Beauty was there ; 
I saw her fair form in the snow -drop’s white bell, 
I heard her soft voice in the air. 
Wherever I roved, over vale, wood, or hill. 
The Spirit of Beauty would follow me still ; 
She danced in the aspen, she sighed in the gale. 
She wept in the shower, she blushed in the vale ; 
Her mantle was thrown o’er the misty brake, 
Her splendour shone on the sparkling lake ; 
I felt her breath in the breezes of even, 
Her robe floated over the blue of heaven. 
Wherever I roved, over vale, wood, or hill. 
The Spirit of beauty would follow me still. 
Not the buz of an insect, or carol of bird, 
Not an echo nor sound in the valley w’as heard. 
Not a wild-brier rose its fragrance breathed. 
Not an elm its clustering foliage wreathed, 
Not a violet opened its leaves of blue. 
Not a plant or flower in the valley grew. 
Not an ivy caressing the rock or the wall, 
But the Spirit of Beauty was over them all!” 
American Monthly Magazine. 
* See “ The Gardener’s Gazette,” for November 17, 1838. 
