March 9. 
the cottage gardener. 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
433 
11 
D 
D 
W 
9 
Tu 
1U 
F 
11 
S 
12 
Son 
! 13 
M 
14 
Tu 
15 
w 
MARCH 9—15, 1854. 
Carabus eatenulatus. 
Carabus nomoralis; garden. 
Nebria brevicollis. 
2 Sunday in Lent. 
Elaphrus ripariug. 
Bembidium flavipea. 
W Bembidium puncticolle. 
Wka.thf.ii neae London in 1853. 
Sun 
Rises. 
1 
— 
— 
— 
Barometer, 
Thermo. 
Wind. 
Rain in 
Inches. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
R. & S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
bf. Sun. 
Day ol 
Year. 
30.15S—30.141 
30.191—30.151 
30.173—30.0S3 
30.030—29.906 
29.823—29.622 
29 . 627 — 29.515 
29.615—29.525 
56—36 
55— 27 
56— 35 
56—28 
61—37 
50—25 
52—32 
S. 
S.W. 
E. 
E. 
S. 
S.W. 
S.W. 
36 
18 
30 a C 
28 
26 
23 
21 
19 
17 
51 a 5 
53 
55 
57 
58 
VI 
2 
4 24 
5 6 
5 38 
6 3 
0 24 
rises. 
7 a 3 
10 
11 
12 
13 
14 
© 
16 
10 47 
10 32 
10 16 
9 59 
9 43 
9 26 
9 9 
68 
69 
70 
71 
72 
73 
74 
■;r— 
BRITISH WILD FLOWERS. 
(Continued from page 353.) 
CARDAMINE.—LADY’S SMOCK. 
Generic Character. —Calyx a little unequal at the base; 
leaves oblong-egg-shaped, blunt, slightly spreading, de¬ 
ciduous, two of them protuberant, in some degree, below 
their insertion. Petals reversed-egg-shaped, rather upright, 
undivided, tapering at the base into short claws. Filaments 
awl-shaped, simple, the two shortest with a gland at the 
base, next the calyx. Anthers small, oblong-heart-shaped, 
acute, curved hack. Germen line-like, slender. Style scarcely 
any. Stigma blunt, entire. Pod stalkless, erect, line-like, 
compressed laterally; valves flat, without ribs, scarcely 
narrower than the bordered partition, bursting elastically 
from the base, and mostly curling back. Seeds egg-shaped, 
not bordered, inserted alternately in a single row; their 
stalks simple, short and slender; cotyledons accumbent. 
Cardamine bellidifolia : Daisy-leaved Lady’s Smock; 
Daisy-leaved Cress; Alpine Cress. 
Description .—It is a perennial. Root rather woody, divided 
at the crown. Herb two or three inches high, unbranched, 
erect, bright green, smooth. Leaves simple, egg-shaped 
dark green, entire; the root ones much shorter than their 
footstalks, sometimes a little wavy or angular, the upper¬ 
most nearly stalkless. Flowers few, flat-bunched, terminal. 
Calyx purplish. Petals white, erect. Style short and conical. 
Pods hardly an inch long, crowned with the round-headed 
stigma, on a short thick style , strap-shaped, blunt, and smooth. 
Time of flowering. —August. 
Places where found .—Many errors have occurred about 
this plant, Turritis hirsuta being mistaken for it, but Mr. 
Milne found species of it wild in Scotland, and Dr. Wither¬ 
ing, jun., says—“ Of these being genuine there can be no 
doubt.” . As it is found in Lapland, and near the summits 
of the highest Alps, it should be sought for far north in the 
British islands. 
History .—The first mention of it as a British plant is by 
Ray {Hist. Plant, i. 817), who, writing in 1680, says—“It has 
been lately found on St. Vincent’s Rocks, near Bristol, by Mr. 
James Newton.” That botanist, however, must have taken 
some other plant for it, as it has never been seen there since. 
By the old writers on plants, it was variously called a Nas¬ 
turtium, a Sinapis, and a Cardamine, but almost always with 
a specific name, referring to its Daisy- like leaves.— {Smith. 
Withering. Mariya. Ray.) 
The greatest surgeon who ever lived was accustomed 
to declare that he never approached the operation table 
without a feeling of humiliation, for he was convinced 
that the real triumph of his art lay not at all in per¬ 
forming operations, but in preventing the necessity for 
them altogether. Hunter’s ablest follower, Abernethy, 
founded himself, as one may say, on this single axiom; 
and it was a perpetual theme of discourse with Macartney, 
another of the sons of the giant. We have recently 
met with the following highly suggestive remarks by 
Dr. Latham:— 
“ Prior to diseases; to their diagnosis; their history, 
and their treatment; prior to them, and beyond them, 
there lies a large field for medical observation. It is 
not enough to begin with their beginning. There are 
things earlier than their beginning which deserve to 
be known. The habits, the necessities, the misfortunes, 
the vices of men in society, contain materials for the 
inquiry, and for the statistical systematising study of 
physicians, fuller, far fuller, of promise for the good of 
mankind than pathology itself.” 
The general aim, then, of this series of papers is not 
so very much out of the way—not so very unpractical 
as might at first appear. It must be remembered that 
all attempts whatever at writing popular medicine have 
failed It remains to be of the public to cease to try 
to do that which the proverb “ heal thyself,” hints that 
the physician can hardly accomplish in his own case. 
But a philosophical and religious inquiry into the 
remoter causes of disease offers promise of more general 
No. CCLXXX1V., Vol. tt 
