Periwinkle. 
(TENDER RECOLLECTIONS.) 
I N France the Periwinkle , which there is sometimes called 
“ the magician’s violet,” is considered the emblem of sin¬ 
cere friendship, and as such is much used in their language of 
flowers. The English have adopted this evergreen plant as 
the representative of tender recollections, and, accepting it for 
that, the following little anecdote appears very appropriate: 
Rousseau tells us that one day, when walking with Madame 
de Warens, she suddenly exclaimed, “ Here is the periwinkle 
yet in flower !” Being too short-sighted to see the plant with¬ 
out stooping, he had never observed it before; he gave it a 
passing glance, and saw it no more for thirty years. At the 
end of that period, as he was walking with a friend, “ having 
then began,” he says, “ to botanize a little, in looking among 
the bushes by the way, I uttered a cry of joy: ‘Ah, there is 
the periwinkle !’ and so it was.” He gives this as an instance 
of the vivid recollection he had of every incident occurring at 
a particular period of his life. Although the story is trifling, 
it is so natural, is told with so much simplicity, and is so appli¬ 
cable to our purpose, that we could not think of omitting it. 
In Italy the country people make garlands of this plant, to 
place upon the biers of their deceased children, for which reason 
they name it the “ flower of death.” But in Germany it is the 
symbol of immortality; and, because its fine glossy myrtle- 
green leaves flourish all through the winter, they term it “win¬ 
ter verdure.” 
Its bright blue blossoms and still brighter green leaves have 
not been overlooked by the poets ; and we find Eliza Cook 
introducing it into her pathetic poem of “The Blind Boy:” 
