plants, that their number now known amounts to 
about 9,500 ; the total estimate of all discovered 
plants being 95,000. We naturally ask, wherefore 
this profusion ? Wherefore this variety — this 
beauty ? Let Mrs. Howitt answer — 
God might have bade the earth bring forth 
Enough for great and small. 
The oak-tree and the cedar-tree. 
Without a flower at all. 
He might have made enough, enough, 
For every want of ours ; 
For luxury, medicine, and toil, 
And yet have made no flowers. 
The ore within the mountain-mine 
Requireth none to grow, 
Nor doth it need the lotus flower 
To make the river flow. 
Then wherefore, wherefore were they made, 
All dyed with rainbow light ; 
And fashion’d with supremest grace, 
Uprising day and night ; 
Springing in valleys green and low, 
And on the mountains high, 
And in the silent wilderness, 
Where no man passes by ? 
Our outward life requires them not — 
Then wherefore had they birth 1 
To minister delight to man, 
To beautify the earth ; 
To comfort man — to whisper hope 
Whene’er his faith is dim ; 
For whoso careth for the flowers, 
Will much more care for him ! 
