18 
INTRODUCTION. 
ers. They serve all purposes; and we are 
reminded of the fable of the flowers, where 
the rose says, — 
What can a poet do without us ? 
“ But it is not poets alone who half wor¬ 
ship flowers. What an enthusiastic devotion 
is that which sends a man from the attrac¬ 
tions of home, the ties of neighbourhood, 
the bonds of country, to range plains, valleys, 
hills, and mountains, for a new flower. What 
a spirit must have animated Hermann, Hassel- 
quist, Tournefort, Linnaeus, Solander, Saus- 
sure, Humboldt, and hundreds of those who 
have sacrificed every personal convenience 
and selfish motive for the sake of illustrat¬ 
ing the volume of nature, and opening almost 
a new existence upon those whose researches 
are necessarily limited. But the love of flow¬ 
ers is not shared exclusively by the poet and 
the naturalist. Oh! no, the little child loves 
the flower garden, and watches with intense 
interest the early opening buds, such fair 
types of itself. The young, the middle aged, 
and the hoary head, silvered with the snows 
of three-score years and ten; all, all hang 
