THE BOTANICAL LOOKER-OUT. 
147 
Old-fashion’d flowers, which housewives love so well 5 
The Columbines, stone-blue, or deep night-brown, 
Their honeycomb-like blossoms hanging down, 
Each cottage garden’s fond adopted child, 
Though heaths still claim them, where they yet grow wild ; 
With Marjoram knots, Sweet-briar, and Ribbon-grass, 
And Lavender, the choice of every lass, , 
And sprigs of Lad’s-love—all familiar names, 
Which every garden through the village claims. 
These the maid gathers with a coy delight, 
And ties them up in readiness for night; 
Then gives to every swain, 'tween love and shame, 
Her 4 clipping -posies ,’ as his yearly claim.” 
Anciently, the flowers of the woods, fields, and gardens, were intimately 
associated with the festivals of the church; and when the style was altered in 
the last century, many people who had slips in their gardens from the celebrated 
Holy Thorn of Glastonbury, said to flower only on the eve of our Saviours 
nativity, boldly appealed to it to solve their doubts, and as the Thorn, true to 
its usual time, could not be persuaded to accelerate its budding, Old Christmas- 
day was long kept in [defiance of the Act of Parliament, and even now, in 
secluded parishes, is honoured as alone worthy of hallowed respect. The old 
rhyming anthology says—• 
“ When St. Barnaby bright smiles night and day. 
Poor Ragged-Robin blooms in the hay 
and certainly we may rest assured that Summer is not come till this plant.^ 
Lychnis fioscuculi , shows its ragged red petals in the Grass. Another plant, still 
more true to the first Summer days of June than the Ragged-Robin, is the Silver- 
weed ( PotentiUa anserina ), which, distinguished by its creeping argenteous 
leaves and brilliant golden flowers, now burnishes the sides of roads and heathy 
spots. At this time, too, the Yellow-rattle ( Rhinanthus cristagalli) abounds in 
the Grass of meadows, and when its seeds rattle spontaneously in their capsules, 
like dice in a box, the Grass is said to be ripe for cutting. The St. Johns-wort, 
(Hypericum) bears its title from flowering on or about June 24th, the day of 
the celebration of the feast of John the Baptist.* Facts like these furnish an 
incentive for a botanist to “ look out,” and by examining the appearance of well- 
known plants, he is soon able to know whether the season is forward or backward, 
and even by how many days it is so. I regret to say that I have a very 
dismal “ look-out” this year, for while the wintry winds blew down half my 
Apple-trees, the biting frosts have so cut up the blossons of the rest, that I 
* In some parts of Wales this solstitial flower is placed upon door-posts as a defence against 
evil spirits—a custom, perhaps, derived from Druidical times. 
