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TIIE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
WEEPING WILLOW ( Salix Babylonica). Melancholy. 
The common willow is sacred to forsaken lovers ; but 
this graceful tree, whose branches seem to droop with 
an eternal weight of regret, is by universal consent 
appropriated to the graveyard. There, early in spring, 
its silvery, flexile branches wave over the resting-places 
of those dear to us, and seem to murmur continually, 
with Lafontaine,— 
“ Absence is the greatest of all evils.” 
HORSE-CHESTNUT ( AEsculus hippocastanuni). Luxury. 
This gorgeous tree bursts into leaf and bloom with 
incredible rapidity on the return of spring. When it is 
growing alone, nothing can equal the symmetry of its 
pyramidal form, the richness of its foliage, and its 
superb clusters of flowers. The fruit, however, is bitter, 
and the wood of little value. 
LILAC (Syringa vulgaris). First emotion of love. 
“ O Lilac, in whose purple well 
Youth, in perpetuo, doth dwell, 
My fancy feels thy fragrant spell. 
“Of all that morning dews do feed — 
All flowers of garden, field, or mead — 
Thou art the first in childhood’s creed. 
“ And, e’en to me, thy breath in spring 
Hath power a little while to bring 
Back to my heart its blossoming.” 
T. W. Parsons. 
Van Spaendonck let his brush fall before a bunch of 
lilacs. Nature seems indeed to have made every cluster 
