J 
(Balantl)US VltDdlisr. Natural Order: Amaiyllidacece — Amaryllis Family 
URICH, with the adjoining cantons of Switzerland and some 
other localities in Europe, may be considered the original 
habitats of this little plant, the botanical name of which sig¬ 
nifies Snowy Milk-flower. It flourishes in the meadows and 
along the water courses that abound in the neighborhood of 
the Alps, where the pure and everlasting snow rests like a 
cloud between the blue sky‘above and the green and fertile valley 
IjK) beneath. It is very hardy, as it would indeed have to be to exist 
amid such surroundings. Having been many years cultivated, it has 
found its way from the parterres abroad into the gardens of America, 
where it may be seen peeping from its snowy coverlet long before 
other flowers burst from their wintry prisons, or nature awakes from 
her dreaming. The roots are bulbous, and in planting they show to 
better advantage where several (from six to eight) are set in a group, when, in 
a few years, the increase will warrant a division. The flower is of a fair size, 
and pendulous, with only a single blossom on a stem. 
mmljtfirrju 
/OH! sweetly beautiful it is to mark 
^ The virgin, vernal snowdrop! lifting up — 
Meek as a nun — the whiteness of its cup, 
From earth’s dead bosom, desolate and dark. 
OWEET flower, thou tell’st how hearts 
^ As pure and tender as thy leaf—as low 
And humble as thy stem — will surely know 
The joy that peace imparts. —Percival. 
TTER precious pearl, in sorrow’s cup, 
A A Unmelted at the bottom lay, 
To shine again, when, all drunk up, 
The bitterness should pass away. 
— Moore. 
HTHE little shape, by magic pow’r, 
A Grew less and less, contracted to a flow’r; 
A flow’r, that first in this sweet garden smiled, 
To virgins sacred, and the snowdrop styled. 
— Tick ell. 
FlL 
