THE AIR-PLANT. 
115 
forth new leaves, new flowers, and new fragrance, excited 
alone to fresh life and action by the stimulus of the sur¬ 
rounding atmosphere.” Another species is held in such 
repute that, in the Isle of Ternate, none but princesses 
are allowed to wear its precious blossoms. Scarcely 
any of this elegant genus were seen here, except in a 
dry state, before the year 1787, at which period one 
flowered for the first time in the stove at Kew. Since 
then, however, though difficult of cultivation, several 
species, both in spring and autumn, have been seen 
blooming in the royal garden. 
In those bright regions where the rising sun 
Scatters his earliest beams, a wondrous flower, 
Peerless in fragrance and in beauty, blooms. 
Know ye its story ? that is peerless too: 
Unlike to other flowers from earth which spring, 
This fairy blossom asks ethereal food, 
And like “ some creature of the element 
That in the colours of the rainbow lives 
And plays i’ the plighted clouds,” soars far aloft, 
Even to the far-spread forest’s topmost bough, 
And in “ a privacy of glorious light ” 
Unbosoms there its fragrance to the sun. 
IIow meet a lesson this for groveling man ! 
