2lgat)£ Americana. Natural Order: Amaryllidacecz—Amaryllis Family. 
HIS plant is a native of the tropical portions of America, 
although the same species are found in the burning sands of 
the Eastern Hemisphere. The leaves are thick and fleshy, 
tapering to a point, and dentate on the edges. They some¬ 
times grow as much as six or eight feet in length, each leaf 
coming out one close above the other, with no interval on the 
The flower-stalk rises from the center of the surrounding 
leaves to the height of twenty to thirty feet, bearing on the summit 
a pyramidal panicle of numberless yellow flowers. Formerly it was 
said to bloom only once in a century. It is now known to bloom 
from eight years upward, according to the attention given it, and the 
1 -region where it grows. Another variety, with smaller leaves of 
HSsf almost invisible green, is completely covered with white, bead-like 
dots, forming a striking contrast to the color on which they rest. 
/TH sorrow! where on earth hast thou not sped 
^ Thy fatal arrows! on what lovely head 
Hast thou not poured, alas! thy bitter phial, 
And cast a shadow on the spirit’s dial. 
— Anna Estelle Lewis. 
TN tears, the heart oppressed with grief, 
Gives language to its woes; 
In tears its fullness finds relief, 
When rapture’s tide o’erflows! 
Who, then, unclouded bliss would seek 
On this terrestrial sphere, 
When e’en delight can only speak, 
Like sorrow, in a tear? 
— Metastasio. 
T T ALF of the ills we hoard within our hearts, 
x A Are ills because we hoard them. —Proctor. 
T)UT where the heart of each should beat, 
There seemed a wound instead of it, 
From whence the blood dropped to their feet, 
Drop after drop — dropped heavily, 
As century follows century 
Into the deep eternity. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
T AM dumb, as solemn sorrow ought to be; 
Could my griefs speak, the tale would have no end. 
— Otway. 
8 
