lady, because it opens at this hour. Its roots are nutritious, and are supposed by Linnæus to have been the dove's dung mentioned in Scripture, as the food of the famished Jews when Jerusalem was surrounded by the proud armies of Sennacherib. The musk or starch hyacinth is a well known plant of the order; it grows wild in many parts of England, and its dark purple bells have a strong odour of starch. CHAPTER XVIII. CONVOLVULUS EGLANTINE -CLIMBING PLANTS-PECULIARITY OF TWINING PLANTS-LARGE WHITE BIND WEED-SMALLER BINDWEED-SEA-SIDE CONVOLVULUS -GARDEN CONVOLVULUSES-SWEET POTATOE-DODDER -PARASITIC PLANTS. "On the hill Let the wild heath-bell flourish still, Cherish the tulip, prune the vine, But freely let the woodbine twine, And leave untrimmed the eglantine." Sir W. Scott. FROM Some other lines of Sir Walter Scott's, in which the lady is bidden to twine a wreath of eglantine for the brow, it is probable that he, in speaking of this plant, alludes to that luxuriant creeper the traveller's joy, or wild clematis, or virgin's bower, which is very commonly, though erroneously, termed eglantine. Milton apparently calls the honeysuckle by this name, "Through the sweetbriar or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine." The true eglantine of the older writers is, however, the prickly sweetbriar, which so often forms a hedge for our gardens, pouring upon the breeze the delicious odour that resides in the herbage as much as in the blossoms. It is the Rósa rubiginósa of modern botanists, and the Rosa eglantéria of the olden time. It is to this Shakspeare refers: "And leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander Thus again, Spenser, in the Fairy Queen, de scribes a bower: "And over him, art striving to compare With nature, did an arbour green disspred, Framed of wanton ivy, flow'ring fair, Through which the fragrant eglantine did spread That when mild Zephyrus amongst them blew, Did breathe out bounteous smells, and painted colours shew." Spenser was very careful to preserve the old names of flowers, and he, as well as Shakspeare, calls the honeysuckle-our woodbineby the name of caprifole. It is still called by botanists caprifolium. Of all the flowers with which summer with a lavish hand graces our pastoral scenery, filling the air with fragrance and covering the earth with beauty, none are more generally attractive than the wild climbing plants of the hedges. They are most numerous towards the latter part of summer or the beginning of autumn. By interweaving their slender boughs, covered with foliage and flowers, or with berries no less beautiful, or, as in the wild clematis, crowned with their light and feathery seeds, they hang about the trees and bushes, and contribute very materially to that aspect of richness and beauty which the landscape presents at this part of the year. As the stems of these plants are so slender and yielding that they would sink under the weight of their flowery clusters, or their numerous leaves, or be shattered to pieces by the winds, if they did not find support from other plants, we see them hanging by their tendrils, or bending their stems into the most graceful twinings, and clothing the trunks of aged trees- -"those green-robed senators of mighty woods, tall oaks" —with an abundant verdure, the dark glossy green of which contrasts with their grey lichencovered trunks, or with the brighter tints of that massy canopy which overhangs them. It is very evident that the ascending position of the greater number of plants is necessary, both for their prosperity and the welfare of man and the lower animals. How soon would the profuseness of vegetation become a curse rather than a blessing, if it were not for the provisions made for this ascending direction! Were it not for this, the whole earth would be clogged with stems and foliage, and the industry of man could not effect a clearance for culture or pathway. At every step his foot would be entangled. Then indeed the woods would all be pathless, and the want of a free circulation of air would render the plants coarse and rank, |