de vin," in honour of this use. The young tops and stems were eaten as salad by the Greeks, and are still used in dyeing. An infusion of the Bramble bush, be it flower, leaf, or root, is most soothing in all diseases of the bladder.

The Bramble was the subject of one of the earliest parables of Palestine; and by analogy, with it the wise young man Jotham showed to the men of Shechem the folly of anointing a weak king to reign over them. The Bramble, being a trailing plant, cannot give support to another, but needs a prop for itself. It would thus suggest the far higher lesson, not to "trust in princes, or in any child of man, in whom is no strength;" but to "trust in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord JEHOVAH is everlasting strength."

The Agrimony family is now the only one that remains of the Strawberry group. Our one British species (A. eupatória) grows in lanes near Ripon, and near Richmond; it has five petals, five sepals, and two seeds enclosed in the tube of the hardened calyx. Its yellow flowers grow on a tall slender spike, and have an aromatic smell. It blooms in July. It used to be valued as a tonic medicine.

The Burnet group comes next.

The seeds are contained in a hardened calyx, but the flowers have the peculiarity of being endowed with two calices, and are entirely destitute of corolla.

The little green clustered blossoms of the common Lady's Mantle (Alchemilla vulgáris) are familiar to us all; it grows in meadows and pastures, attains the height of one foot, and bears its flower-cluster on the summit of its branches.

The Alpine Lady's Mantle (A. alpína) was sent me from the Sma' Glen, Perthshire. Its flowers are no more conspicuous than those of the former species, but indeed less so; its great beauty consists in the glossy green of its palmate leaves, contrasted with their silver lining.

The Field Lady's Mantle (A. arvénsis) is in my collection of Kentish plants; it grows abundantly in corn fields in that and most other counties-an humble, unassuming plant, with

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flowers and leaves of the same dull light green hue. It has large, broad, jagged stipules.

The tall Burnet (Sanguisórba officinalis) grows in meadows by the Swale, near Richmond. It has a pinnate leaf, and a very tall flower-stalk, surmounted by a compact oval head of dark crimson flowers. The leaves are furnished with stipules. This is our only British species.

The Salad Burnet family (Potérium sanguisórba) is the last in this Burnet group; it also has but one British member. This Salad Burnet grows in our Yorkshire pastures, the stamens hanging in long clusters from the tiny flowers of the head; the stigmas live on a separate plant. Its leaves have the flavour of Cucumber, and are, therefore, used in salads; they are also an ingredient in the beverage called "Cool Tankard.” Now we come to the Roses, the prettiest family in all the extensive order to which it gives its name. The five petals and permanent sepals are characteristics common to the whole tribe; but the enlarged and fleshy tube of the calyx, which becomes the seed-vessel, is a distinctive feature of this family.

The Burnet Rose (Rósa spinosíssima) is a dwarf species; the leaves are small, and every part of it bristly; the flowers are cream-coloured, and very fragrant. I have seen it growing abundantly on the shore of the Frith of Forth, and flourishing by the Loe Pool. It blossoms in July, and its dark brown berries ripen in September.

The Sweet Briar (R. rubiginósa) grows side by side with the Burnet Rose on the shore of the Frith of Forth, and it is also an inhabitant of Cornwall, as I know, having gathered it near Fowey. The fragrant scent of its foliage is better recognized as a mark of distinction than its frail pink blossoms. This is the Eglantine of the poets.

The Dog Rose (R. canína, Plate V., fig. 5) is a very common species, adorning every hedge in July with its fragrant flowers. It has pink blossoms, and not bright foliage; and its oval scarlet fruit is well known. In Queen Elizabeth's time ladies used to make a conserve of these hips, and they are still used

medicinally. From the flowers excellent Rose-water is distilled. The Romans strewed Roses in the streets at their great festivals, and the Egyptians made the Rose an emblem of silence: hence, I imagine, the saying "Under the Rose." With us it is rather an emblem of love.

The Soft Rose, and the Downy-leaved Rose, grow in the woods in Swaledale; they resemble each other closely, the foliage of both being rough, and having a strongly resinous The former species has large red fruit, tipped with the old sepals; the flower and fruit of the latter are both darker in shade, and the form of the fruit is longer.

scent.

The Round-headed Rose, with ribbed fruit, and the small Sweet Briar, with pale blossoms, I have never found. The latter is said to grow at Bridport, in Warwickshire. Glaucous Rose is a Highland species.

The

The Trailing Rose is a pretty delicately-scented species, common enough in our hedges, and easily distinguished by its bright pale foliage, and the salmon tint of its petals.

The Thicket and Irish Roses have hooked prickles. I have got no specimens of them.

The Trailing Dog Rose (R. arvénsis) is my last contribution. It is very common in Yorkshire, climbing a great height. Its flowers are large, pure white, and very sweet. Its foliage is scentless, of a full bright green, and the large leaflets taper very gracefully. This is reputed to be the White Rose which became the standard of the Yorkists. I fancy it is also the species sometimes called Musk Rose, its scent partaking of that odour. It was a great favourite with Keats, who writes of its charms again and again—

"I saw the sweetest flower that Nature yields,

A fresh-blown Musk Rose; 'twas the first that threw

Its sweets upon the summer; graceful it grew

As is the wand that Queen Titania wields :

And as I feasted on its fragrancy,

I thought the garden Rose it far excelled."

In Scripture the Rose is spoken of as a type of prosperity:

ROSES-APPLES.

III

"The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the Rose." Dr. Murray states that the Rose used to be considered to possess medicinal properties, and enormous quantities of the Damascus Rose were cultivated in the East for chemical purposes: he speaks of a breakfast given at Hazar Bagh, or "thousand gardens," near Shiraz, to Sir John Malcolm, then our envoy to the Court of Persia, which was celebrated on a stack of Roses. "The stack, which was as large as a common one of hay in England, had been formed without much trouble from the heaps of Rose-leaves collected before they were sent into the city to be distilled." He relates, also, that a courier who brought despatches overland from Constantinople to the British Government was robbed and plundered of everything by thieves. Among the goods he was conveying were several bottles of attar of Roses, and, one of these breaking, the scent was so powerful as to guide the officers of justice to the robbers' den. Herrick draws a simple moral from the fast-perishing Wild Rose

"Gather the Roses while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying;

And this same flower which smiles to-day

To-morrow will be dying."

And the same idea of the fleeting nature of all joys, of which the Rose might stand as emblem, appears in the pathetic lines of Mrs. Hemans:

"It is written on the Rose

In its bright array—

'Hear thou what these buds disclose,
Passing away!'

We now come to the Apple group, in which the seeds are ensconced in a horny case or core, and further protected by the juicy swollen flesh of the calyx-tube.

For some years I sought the Wild Pear in vain, until some botanical friends of mine migrated to Shropshire, and then I got information of the object of my search. This tree is indigenous in that county as well as in the neighbouring one of

Herefordshire-the great locality for Pear cultivation. Here I had afterwards the good fortune to find it growing in Penyard Wood, near Ross, and blossoming in April. A Pear, very little removed from the wild species, is there grown in the open fields, and called Barland Pear. The fruit is safe enough from depredation, for it is so woody, even when ripe, that it has originated a country proverb, "as hard as a Barland Pear.” There Pear orchards exist as systematically as Apple orchards, and the perry-a refreshing beverage somewhat resembling cider is made from the fruit. Before Kensington became so extensive, the inhabitants used to gather the Wild Pear blossoms in the hedges; but squares and palaces stand now on the home of the wild shrubs.

A well-grown Pear is a tree of remarkable beauty.

"And she dug for them a tomb beneath the snowy bloom
Of the old Pear tree's hugest arm,

As though that giant of his race, the patriarch of the place,
By power of immemorial charm,

Girt the whole orchard ground with a magic safely round,
And screened all within from harm."

The wood of the Pear tree (Pyrus commúnis) is very hard, and is used instead of Box by some for wood-engraving.

The Crab Apple (P. málus) is familiar to us all for its clusters of pale cupped flowers and rose-tinted buds. I have gathered it in a lane at the back of the Bishop's Palace, at Ripon; also in the Richmond district; and abundantly near Horningsham in Wiltshire, and Somersetshire and Kent. The orchards of Herefordshire, Somersetshire, and Devonshire are beautiful objects when covered with blossom, and the busy scenes of the cidermaking are not less interesting. The Apple is the most useful of British fruits, and a merry business the gathering generally is. Solomon had a great preference for this tree, as he says, As the Apple among the trees of the wood, so is my Beloved among the sons;" and again, "A word fitly spoken is like Apples of gold in pictures of silver."

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The Wild Service tree (P. torminális) is the next member of