INTRODUCTION 
CHAPTER I. 
There certainly was never a time when the love and 
study of flowers was more general than at present. Not 
only is the number of botanists annually increasing; but 
flower-shows and horticultural societies are frequently 
inviting public attention to the beautiful ornaments of 
the garden or conservatory. Many who will not study 
plants scientifically, or who care little to rear them, are 
disposed to listen to any general information to be ob- 
tained respecting them. To those who value the study 
of nature, it is matter of congratulation that wild -flowers 
are now regarded with so much interest, that they who 
wander abroad in the meadows wish to know their names 
and properties, and to learn the old legends connected 
with many of them, and which have brought down to 
us so much of the feelings and habits of other da-ys. 
There is something in the love of any portion of 
nature, which is calculated to produce kindly emotions 
in the bosom where it resides. It is, indeed, a gift of 
blessings to him who owns it. “It serves,” says Alison, 
“ to identify us with the happiness of that nature to v/hich 
we belong, to give us an interest in every species of being 
which surrounds us, and, amid the hours of curiosity and 
delight, to awaken those latent sympathies from which 
all the moral and intellectual greatness of man finally 
arises.” And well may we, therefore, when we see the 
child treasuring his daisies and cow^slips, or chasing the 
brown bee on the moor ; or behold the artisan tending 
his auriculas, or the lady teaching the jessamine’s sweet 
wreath to robe her bower in silver; — well may we wel- 
come the sight. It is an indication of a perception of 
beauty — of an awakened love of nature, which will not 
be satisfied with the object before it, but will comprise 
