because the roots alone will not be sufficient to absorb all the nutriment requisite for it. In the case of the succulent plant of the rock or desert, the foliage performs by far the greater portion of absorption, the roots being generally extremely small in proportion to the size of the vegetable, and the soil containing little of that moisture which is the grand medium of the various substances absorbed by plants.

The agave belongs to an order of plants which are chiefly exotics.

CHAPTER XXIII.

SWEET WOODRUFF-MORNING IN THE COUNTRY-OLD

NAME OF WOODRUFF-SCENT JARS-MOORLAND WOODRUFF-FIELD WOODRUFF MADDER - BED STRAWGOOSE-GRASS USE OF THIS PLANT IN VILLAGES

VERSES.

"Come, while in freshness and dew it lies,

To the world that is under the free blue skies;
Leave ye man's home, and forget his care,
There breathes no sigh on the day-spring's air.
Come to the woods, in whose mossy dells
A light all made for the poet dwells,

A light, coloured softly by tender leaves,
Whence the primrose a mellower glow receives."

Mrs. Hemans.

How pleasant it is to wander into the country when the breath of early morning is upon the dewy hills, the lark singing at heaven's gate, and when the slight mist in the atmosphere, and the deep blue of the sky, give promise of a

warm summer's day. The spider is busy repairing the slender line which the dew-drop has broken, and weaving a tenement which will perhaps last some hours, since no breeze seems likely to arise that will do more than sway the bough on which it hangs. A pleasant day it will be to wander in the wild wood and gather strawberries; but still pleasanter is it, while the day is yet young, for the poet and the lover of nature to linger on the borders of the quiet copse, to watch the opening flowers as they lift their meek eyes to heaven, silently, though unconsciously, speaking the praise of their Creator:

"Sweet is the breath of morn, its rising sweet
With charm of earliest birds."

The country is so calmly beautiful in the morning, that it seems rather to belong to the world of dreams which we have just quitted,-to be some paradise, which suffering and care cannot enter, than to form a portion of a busy and anxious world, in which even the very flowers must share in decay and death.

How glad are they who love nature too well to sleep when she is putting on her loveliest dress, to wander away into the woods and meadows. The mower, with his scythe, is laying low the flowers of the field, and like his great prototype Death, will spare neither the proud nor the lowly, and now will fall many

"A coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers,

While that same dew, which sometimes on the buds
Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls
Stands now within the pretty flowrets' eyes,
Like tears which do their own disgrace bewail.”

But the flowers of the hedges and copses will remain to pour out their fragrance long after the hay is carried from the field. The sweet woodruff is secure, for it is a lover of the quiet wood, and can only be found where tree or bush will lend a friendly shelter from the rough winds or storms, which might fall too heavily upon its gentle head.

A very pretty little plant is the sweet woodruff, with its thick clusters of purely white jasmine-shaped flowers, and its numerous coronals

of bright green leaves, placed one above another around its stem. One might almost fancy that a great Divine was thinking of this very flower when he said that the soul of a good man was like "such a little white flower as we see in the spring of the year, low and humble on the ground, opening its bosom to receive the pleasant beams of the sun's glory; rejoicing, as it were, in a calm rapture; diffusing a sweet fragrance; standing peacefully and lovingly in the midst of other flowers, round about it, all in like manner, opening their bosoms to receive the light of the sun." This little flower of the wild is indeed well adapted to suggest to the mind an image of purity and humility.

The sweet woodruff (Aspérula odorata) has slender leaves, placed around the stem in a whorl, the number of leaflets in each little coronal being generally eight. The foliage is something similar to that of the common cleavers, or goosegrass, but larger and much prettier, and the blossom, too, is far more elegant. It may be found in the woods during