LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
133 
IMPATIENCE— Balsam. Which when touched is said 
to throw the seeds out of the capsules with great 
force ; and from this quality it is selected to express 
irritation or ingratitude. 
INDEPENDENCE— Wild-plum Blossom. One of the 
oldest and hardiest of our English forest fruits, 
which grows wild in hundreds of hedges, and cannot 
he trained in gardens or orchards. It seems to love 
best those rugged and solitary nooks which have 
never been cultivated by the hand of man since the 
creation, and is well chosen as an emblem of Inde¬ 
pendence. 
INDIFFERENCE — Gandy-tuft. So it stands in all floral 
alphabets, because its blossoms are scentless. 
INGRATITUDE— Buttercup. So called in the Language 
of Flowers, because it is supposed to injure the 
cattle that feed upon it; and no honey can be ga¬ 
thered from the gaudy gold of its flowers : as it is 
not very likely to figure in a lady’s nosegay, we will 
leave the emblem as it is. 
INNOCENCE— Daisy. See “ Daisy of the Dale,” page 
\ 99, and Poem, 102. 
INSINUATION — Bindweed, or Larger Convolvulus. 
Which forces its way through every open space it 
can find between the branches, until you can 
scarcely discover another leaf besides its own, so 
closely are its long, trailing stems twisted along 
the boughs it has insinuated itself amongst. 
LASTING BEAUTY— Stock, or Gillyflower, for the latter 
is the old name of this truly English flower, which 
our ancestors also called July flower It flourished 
in the gardens of the old baronial castles hundreds 
of years ago, and time and cultivation have rather 
added to, than diminished its beauty: and it is, 
