7 
turn back to plate I. (fig. i) where she is shown in her 
wild simplicity, such as you may find the blossom of the 
delicious sweet briar, or on the long trailing wreaths 
of dog rose in the hedge, or the gay little yellow-eyed, 
dark-stemmed Scottish briar-rose. The sorts of roses are 
innumerable, nearly forty grow -wild in England, many 
more in Europe and Asia, and gardeners have pro¬ 
duced countless varieties by cultivation, but in many 
respects they are all alike. All have a hard woody stem 
covered with thorns, and generally trailing or climbing 
leaves composed of five leaflets, two in pairs and one at 
the end, jagged round the edge like the teeth of a saw. 
They also have a hard round germ beneath the flower, 
crowned by a calyx in five divisions, supporting a corolla 
of five petals, loosely fixed, and not fastened to the nu¬ 
merous yellow stamens in the centre, which as well as the 
cluster of styles grow from the carpel. When the blossom 
falls off, the calyx remains crowning the germ, which 
swells and becomes a scarlet or purple fruit, with five 
divisions, filled with yellow seeds, the hips of our hedges. 
The Boses of cold climates have the germ guarded with 
hairs or bristles, those of warm countries have it naked. 
From the earliest times, the peculiarly fresh perfume of 
the Eose has caused it to be treasured in gardens, and 
cultivation has multiplied the petals, and varied the tints 
of the species so as to produce the numerous beauties to 
be seen in every garden. The old fashioned CABBAGE 
EOSE yields to none in fragrance, and the MOSSEOSE is 
perhaps the most beautiful of all, the dark CHINA EOSE 
clusters over the cottage walls, the pale NOISETTE 
climbs over the trellis, the EOSE UNIQUE looks like a 
ball of snow, and puts us in mind of its inventor, good 
king Bene of Anjou, the father of our Queen Margaret, 
the heroine of the red rose, while the YOEK and LAN- 
CASTEE with both tints is a remembrance of the union 
of the two parties in the house of Tudor. 
“Let merry England proudly rear 
Her blended Eoses bought so dear”. 
Eoses used to be worn round the head at feasts, and 
the guests used to wash their hands in rose water, 
distilled from the petals of Eoses. In the east, princes 
delight to lie upon a couch or stack of fresh rose 
petals, chiefly of the damask rose, or rose of Damas¬ 
cus, and the mother in law of the Great Mogul actually 
filled a canal with rose water on which she sailed in 
her boat. The heat of the sun disengaged the oil from 
the rose water, and thus was discovered that very strong 
scent, attar of roses, which is manufactured in Turkey and 
Syria. Much more might be said of this loveliest of all 
flowers, but we must pass on to the CAENATION ( c ). 
This is one of the Pink or Dianthus tribe, pretty flowers, 
with long linear sea green leaves, pointed stems, and a 
deep calyx with five points containing five petals, each 
with a long slender limb to fix it into the calyx, and a 
spreading blade, cut and ornamented at the edge, and 
generally either red, white or variegated. The stamens 
are twice five, the pistils two, each with a beautiful long 
curled stigma, sometimes blue or black, looking like the i 
trunk or horn of an insect. These may be found in the 
few little delicate native pinks, in the strange wild look¬ 
ing ‘ragged robin’, or in beautifully variegated Indian 
pinks of our gardens, with their infinite varieties of red, 
black and white patterns, or again in the clustered Sweet 
William, but in the pinks, picottees, cloves and carnations 
of the florist, the petals are so numerous as to destroy 
the stamens and pistils and crowd the calyx even to burs¬ 
ting unless it is supported with a card board frill. The 
Pink has jagg’ed edges, the Carnation has them plainly 
rounded and the Clove is of one dark crimson colour, with 
a peculiar and delicious smell. Frailest and most delicate of 
summer flowers, the CONVOLVULUS ( d ) twines its weak 
trailing stem, and heartshaped leaves wherever it can 
find support, and thus has won the English name of‘Bind¬ 
weed’. It has a single style, five stamens, and a corolla 
of one petal, shaped like a half opened parasol and di¬ 
vided into five. It is a very wide spread race, and comes 
to the greatest perfection, in tropical climates whence 
many sorts have been brought to ornament our gardens. 
The most common are called, though not correctly, the 
Convolvulus Major and Minor , and come, the first from 
Africa, the second from Spain. The Major convolvulus is 
that in the picture, and shows most beautiful varieties 
sometimes white with purple lines, sometimes purple rayed 
with red, pink with crimson or with white, but it is too 
delicate to bear the strength of the sunshine and withers 
before noonday. The lesser convolvulus is blue, with a white 
eye and yellow ray. It is hardier, though it dies as soon as 
gathered. The most lovely of all is the wild white bind¬ 
weed, buds and blossoms of the most graceful form, snowy 
white, and growing in long wreaths, but tainted by a 
breath, and fading at a touch. The small English bind¬ 
weed is rose coloured and white, varying in depth of tint 
according as it grows in sun or shade, an exquisite little 
flower, but treated as an enemy, for making gravel 
walks untidy, and for growing up among the corn, and 
tying it down, if it have been laid by a thunderstorm. 
Favourite of poetry, here stands the PANSY ( e ) a plant of 
many names. Its proper Latin name means the three 
coloured violet, and a violet it is, with the same five uni¬ 
ted Stamens, the same petals and spur. “The little wes¬ 
tern flower” is to be often found “milk white” in clover 
fields, very small and tenderly coloured, but a little richer 
soil soon renders the upper petals purple, the lower yel¬ 
low, and expands the black streakings in the eye till the 
peculiar sunny smile of the flower has won it the pretty 
names of HEAETSEASE and LOVE IN IDLENESS; and 
in French it was called PENSEE or thought, perhaps be¬ 
cause the varieties are as strange as are thoug-hts. A larger 
handsomer sort from the Altai mountains, mixed with our 
own, has made the garden sorts infinitely magnificent and 
various, from one intense glow of the richest dark purple 
velvet, down through every variety of purple, yellow and 
white, sometimes emulating a cat’s whiskered face, some¬ 
times an old Man with purple brows and beard, down to 
yellow trimmed with blue, or even white with a little 
dark eye; but ever with the same joyous expression 
Painted on the countenance. 
The HONEYSUCKLE or WOODBINE (/) is as dear to our coun¬ 
try walks as to our gardens. The stem is woody, though 
climbing and very long lived, so that it clings for many a 
long year round the same tree, and even twists itself in 
till the bark grows over it, and the two are fastened to¬ 
gether in perpetual union. The leaves are in pairs, and 
the little twin leaves are some of the first tokens of spring 
bursting out on the hedge side when their down has to 
support tears of hoar frost almost every night. The 
flower does not come till nearly the end of the summer. 
It grows in clusters, parting from one common calyx 
whence arise eight or nine long slightly curved buds, 
with swelling summits. These open a long strip-like lip 
and a second division of the corolla, which stands nearly 
erect, curved over at the top, and jag’ged into four. The 
stamens are five, long and graceful, as is the style, with 
a pin headed stigma. The germ is round, and becomes a 
red berry, with two seeds. Few flowers are more pecu¬ 
liar, or more graceful than the honeysuckle, and the de¬ 
licious scent perfumes a whole garden. The wild sort is 
nearly all cream colour; but in gardens, the lips wuthin 
are alone of a rich polished buff, while without, the flower 
is crimson, and nothing can be more pleasant to the sight 
than a cottage door covered with a bower of these blush¬ 
ing’ bright flowers, so quiet yet so cheerful, and shedding 
around such an atmosphere of sweet odours. 
PLATE IV. AUTUMN-FLOWERS. 
In Autumn, most plants are laying aside their gay robes for the 
more serious business of exposing their seed to the fos¬ 
tering sunshine, that it may be ripened before the winter 
frost. But some few will go on blossoming bravely, ta¬ 
king no thought that the cold will hinder their fruit from 
coming to perfection, and there are others brought from 
distant parts of the world, which will not give up their 
old habits to suit our seasons; and thus it comes that our 
gardens are still gay with autumn flowers. Of these one 
of the grandest is a friend from China, the tall HOLLY¬ 
HOCK (&), which lifts perfect spires of puce, pink, yellow 
or white blossoms in shrubberies or cottage gardens. It 
has large spreading leaves, a stem ten or twelve feet 
high, and large flowers of the mallow tribe, with five pe¬ 
tals, and a column in the centre, consisting of numerous 
