92 
SCIENTIFIC GLEANINGS, 
Its graceful head is with sorrow bowed, 
And it quickly pines and fades ; 
Till the fragile bloom is for ever fled 
That gladdened the forest glades. 
It will not dwell ’neath a palace dome, 
With rare exotic flowers, 
Whose perfumed splendour gaily gleams 
In radiant festal hours : 
It loves not the Parian marble vase, 
On the terrace fair and wide; 
Or the bright and sheltered garden bowers 
Smiling in gorgeous pride. 
But it mourns for the far-off dingles, 
For their fresh and joyous air, 
For the dewy sighs and sunny beams 
That lingered o’er it there. 
0 lonely and lovely forest flower ! 
A holy lot is thine, 
Amid nature’s deepest solitudes, 
With radiance meek to shine. 
Bright blossom of the shady woods! 
Live on in your cool retreat, 
Unharmed by the touch of human hand, 
Or the tread of careless feet: 
With the rich green fern around your home, 
The birds’ glad song above; 
And the solemn stars in the still night-time 
Looking down with eyes of love ! 
Lucinda Elliot. 
It seems harsh and unkind to restrain our sympathy from the beautiful sentiment that prevails and 
forms the poetic burden of these pretty verses ; hut it behoves the Garden Companion to expose its 
fallacy, and to claim the Linnsea for a garden flower. 
It is enough for me to state that I never yet saw an instance of this plant failing in cultivation, 
where reasonable care was bestowed upon it; the simple directions indicated at page 34 will enable 
any one to grow it with success. Not only does it grow and flower in cultivation, but it does both in 
a most satisfactory manner, and certainly flowers more profusely in the Alpine frame than I have ever 
seen it do in its native haunts ! It even seems to flourish amidst the smoke of a city; but my experience 
of it, in this respect, is not sufficiently extended to enable me to speak with entire confidence. The 
American form probably grows even more freely than the Scotch plant. 
For these reasons, let me urge cultivators whose attentions are directed towards the Aipine flora, 
to extend the cultivation of one of the neatest Alpine shrubs known to science, one of the most inter¬ 
esting of vegetable productions, and one of the most easily cultivated plants that was eve]’ introduced 
to the Alpine frame. 
For the benefit of botanical readers, I may observe that several parasitical fungi grow occasionally 
upon the leaves of Linncea borealis. One of these— Sphceria Dickiei is figured and described in the 
“Annals of Natural History ” (April, 1852).—G. 
SCIENTIFIC GLEANINGS. 
K1 CCOKDING to Martius, the fine Palm, Moriche (. Mauritia jlexuosa ), Quiteve, or Ita Palm belongs, 
Mv as well as Calamus, to the group of Lepidocaryese or Coryphineae. Linnaeus has described it 
very imperfectly, as he erroneously considers it to be leafless. The trunk grows as high as twenty 
feet; but it probably requires from 120 to 150 years to reach this height. The Mauritia extends high 
up on the declivity of the Duida, north of the Esmeralda mission, where I have found it in great 
beauty. It forms, in moist places, fine groups of a fresh shining verdure, which reminds us of that of 
our Alder groves. The trees preserve the moisture of the ground by their shade, and hence the 
Indians say that the Mauritia draws the water round its roots by a mysterious attraction. By a 
somewhat similar theory, they advise that serpents should not be killed, because the destruction of the 
serpents and the drying up of the pools or lagunes accompany each other; thus the untutored child of 
nature confounds cause and effect. Gumilla terms the Mauritia Jlexuosa of the Gauranis, the tree of 
life—arbol de la vida. It grows in the mountains of Ronaima, east of the sources of the Orinoco, as 
high as 4000 (4263 English) feet.— Humboldt's Aspects of Nature. 
Mr. Berthold Seeman, the naturalist of Her Majesty’s ship Herald, who has just commenced the 
publication of the plants collected during the voyage, thus gives his experience of the Mangosteen : 
“ One of the finest productions of Singapore, the Mangosteen, was nearly out of season, and could only 
be procured in small quantities; but neither these samples, nor those afterwards obtained off Sumatra, 
came up to the high expectation which I had formed as to their taste. I am glad, however, to have 
met with the fruit. It enables me to compare it with its tw T o rivals, and I may now say I have tasted 
