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elegant, yet so wild and free. Frequently its fine large 
leaves hang in a curtain or drapery of verdure over the 
ragged hedgerow, or spring in festoons from tree to tree, 
with myriads of the purely white tent-shaped bells lying on 
the foliage in wreaths of the most graceful and fanciful 
forms. The leaves are far more beautiful m shape than the 
cultivated ones, being aiTovvy instead of round; and the 
calyx is also more ornamental. Like most wild flowers, when 
gathered, they quickly fade, though when immediately ])laced 
in water, I have had yards of the chaplet tendrils last 
several days in great freshness and beauty. 
Most persons hav^e some sort of acquaintance with Ihe 
Thistle family, and divers are the feelings with which its 
members are regarded. When seized by fair cullers of wild 
buds, albeit with well gloved hands, the sturdy mountaineer 
generally leaves a few sharp spines behind him, to remind 
the assailing fingers he may not be attacked with impunity; 
and this veiy natural self-defence gains him the character of 
a rough pugnacious personage, not fit for gentle company. 
The agriculturist considers him as an intrusive “ne’er do 
weel,” whose acquaintance he is especially desirous to cut 
altogether. The Naturalist and the Poet—and the terms 
oiight to be synonymous, for the true source of all their 
inspiration is the same—spend many an hour in examining 
the curious and beautiful arrangement of the seeds, and their 
gradually developed wings of delicate downy filaments, which, 
when ri])e and expanded, fly away with the tiny genus of the 
I I 
