Andromeda. 
>• 
(WILL YOU HELP ME?) 
T HIS delicate shrub was called Andromeda by the celebra¬ 
ted Linnaeus, after the daughter of Cepheus and Cassiope, 
the story of whose exposure at the water-side, and rescue from 
the sea-monster by Perseus, forms one of the most poetical 
episodes in the fourth book of Ovid’s “ Metamorphoses.” The 
illustrious Swede gives the following reason for applying the 
classic appellation to this pretty pink marsh-flower: “As I 
contemplated it, I could not help thinking of Andromeda, as 
described by the poets—a virgin of most exquisite beauty and 
unrivalled charms. The plant is always fixed in some turfy 
hillock in the midst of the swamps, as Andromeda herself was 
chained to a rock in the sea, which bathed her feet as the fresh 
water does the root of the plant. As the distressed virgin cast 
down her blushing face through excessive affliction, so does 
the rosy-coloured flower hang its head, growing paler and paler 
till it withers away. At length comes Perseus, in the shape of 
summer, dries up the surrounding waters, and destroys the 
monster. 
Thus the author of a “Tour in Lapland ” recounts the words 
of Linnaeus, and it is pleasant to see by their elucidation how 
the great botanist composed his language of flowers—a floral 
language that for many years held so pre-eminent a sway, and 
which, even now, is not quite superseded. 
To German florigraphists this flower typifies the question, 
For whom do you wait f 
20—2 
