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around the edge of the leaf. The insect on alighting on the plant is held a prisoner by these clammy hairs, and the leaf immediately closes over it. Dead flies and other small insects may thus often be found captured by this irritable leaf. The foliage of this flower is very much tinged with crimson, and on drying it for the herbarium, this red hue colours the page through several sheets. The plant is so small as that the whole of it might be covered by the palm of the hand. It is very frequent on the downs near Tunbridge Wells.

The sundew is used as an ingredient in the celebrated Italian liqueur, termed Rossoli; it is, nevertheless, very acrid and caustic in its nature; when distilled with lime, it makes a highly stimulating drink, and, in former times, was much used as a tincture. The practice of expressing the juice, for the removal of the freckles and tan which the summer sun gives to the rustic maiden, has long been a common one; its juice is also said to curdle milk.

The various species of St. John's wort (Hypericum) are now common everywhere, and their bright yellow flowers, with the scent of rosin, are very pretty. The yellow bed straw, (Galium verum,) with its honey like odour, is, when growing in any quantity, a very great ornament to the heath.

The tall broom rape, (Orobanche major,) though not very beautiful, is too large and singular a flower to escape notice. This plant is a parasite, growing on the roots of the

broom and furze, and even sometimes on that of the clover; it very much injures the plant on which it fixes. On heaths it is very common; it is one, two, or even three feet high, with a stem as thick as a finger, without leaves, but with brown scales. Its flowers grow down about a third of the stem, and are of a dingy purple brown. It has the appearance, on a cursory glance, of being a withered plant. The broom rapes attach themselves particularly to plants which have butterfly shaped blossoms.

The waste places are now enlivened by the beautiful tribes of thistles, whose minute feathery seeds, flying so lightly on the breeze, scem in sufficient profusion to sow the whole land with their flowers. One cannot help remarking how, even when the curse was pronounced on Adam, good was mingled with the evil. God said, "Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; in the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread;" * yet who shall say that toil is an unmixed evil, or that labour brings not an enjoyment with it, when he is the least happy who spends his days in listless idleness? So even also the thorns bear roses, and the thistle brings forth lovely flowers.

We have more than a dozen species of wild thistle, difficult, however, to describe particularly. One species, the milk thistle, (Carduus marianus,) may be known by its large leaves, chequered with streaks of milky white. This is often called the Scotch thistle, but is not so,

* Gen. iv. 18, 19.

for common as it is in England, it is very rare in Scotland; almost the only spot of that country in which it is known to grow is on the rocky cliffs near Dunbarton castle; and tradition tells, that the unhappy Mary, queen of Scots, planted it there with her own hand. The beautiful cotton thistle, (Onopordum acanthium,) which grows by Scotia's highways, is cultivated by Scotsmen, as the Scottish thistle; it scems to have some claim to be regarded as the national insignia, for the hard and sharp spines well accord with the proud defiant motto which accompanies it. The adoption of this flower as the national emblem is said to have arisen from the following circumstance: the Danes were invading the Scottish nation, and, according to their usual practice, attacked them during night, when they were sleeping; they had just reached the Scottish camp, when a Dane placing his naked foot on the spiny leaves of a thistle, instinctively uttered a cry, which roused the slumbering warriors, who quickly chased the invaders.

Several thistles have a large quantity of cottony down on their stems and leaves, which, is picked off by country children for tinder; and their large number of seeds are eaten by birds, especially by the goldfinches, which feed almost entirely on the downy grains of flowers.

One of our wild thistles, the musk thistle, (Carduus nutans,) has beautiful purple blossoms, most powerfully fragrant in the evening; and a more common species, the carline thistle,

(Carlina vulgaris,) which is about a foot high, may easily be distinguished from all the others by its yellow flowers; it is frequent on dry and hilly pastures.

The sweet marjoram (Origanum vulgare) is now putting forth its clusters of chocolatecoloured blossoms, and shedding a sweet odour over the heath, or chalky bank; a very useful plant it is too, for the dried leaves make a wholesome tea, and are used medicinally. A piece of cotton dipped in the strong oil which may be expressed from it will often cure the toothache; and the young tops are used to dye cloth of a purple colour, and to give to linen a reddish brown. Its scent is very similar to that of the wild thyme, and the flowers are much like those of that plant, but they grow on a stem, one or two feet high, instead of forming tufts on the ground.

The corn is now fast ripening for the sickle, and very often the corn-field is covered with that bright flower, the corn bluebottle, (C'entaurea Cyanus,) verging from a deep blue to a pale azure, or a faint blue tint; its colour is always beautiful and striking. In Scotland it is called blue bonnet, in France, bluet; in former times, it was termed in our own land, hurt sickle, "because," says an old writer, "it hindereth and annoyeth the reapers, by dulling and turning the edge of their sickles, in reaping of corn. A brilliant blue juice is obtained by expression from this plant, which gives its tint to linen, but the dye is not permanent.

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This flower is a great favourite with German ladies, and they frequently wear it in their hair; it is the companion of the ripening and ripened corn in all the countries of Europe.

The several kinds of scabious are also pretty and common flowers now; the field scabious, (Scabiosa arvensis,) termed by botanists, field knautia, is very frequent on dry fields, and has large convex heads of flowers, of a beautiful purplish lilac; these flowers, if held in the smoke of tobacco, become of a delicate green colour.

The devil's bit scabious (Scabiosa succisa) grows in meadow lands, and is remarkable for its abrupt root, which seems as if bitten off; the fact is, that the top of the root actually dies away, and then a horizontal root is formed; but as no philosophy has yet accounted for the singular fact of this decay, we need not be surprised that, in olden times, it was believed that the great enemy of mankind bit it off in "envie because it had so many excellent vertues." "Unhappily," says Sir J. E. Smith, "this malice has been so successful, that no virtues can be now found in the remainder of the root or herb."

The blue succory, sometimes called chicory, or blue endive, (Cichorium Intybus,) grows alike in corn-fields and hedges, not only in England, but very generally on the continent. The Germans had an old name for it, which signified "keeper of the ways." It has large flowers, the size of half-a-crown, pale blue, and composed of rays, so as that it may truly be

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