in which they have flourished together and worn together their rich and sober array; and not parting till rain, frost, or wind finally rend them asunder and send them each to be the founder of a fresh colony of scabious. Nobody exactly knows whence this kind of scabious came; it has been growing in English gardens for the last two hundred years, but whence it was brought is not certain.

The next aggregate flower is a bold fierce fellow, one of the tallest, strongest, and sharpest of the dwellers in our hedges, the teazel, namely. How prickly it is, only second in sharpness to the thistle, wearing a hedge of thorns in every possible place where there is room for them. The whole of the firm hard hollow stem is scattered with little hooks, bent downwards; the chief ribs of the leaves have prickles all along their under side; the long narrow leaflets of the common calyx are perfect ranks of pricks beneath; and as to the great head itself, it is a very porcupine, for each little lilac flower dwells at the very bottom of a deep calyx, furnished with two hard sharp strong spikes, like a warrior's spears set up before his tent. Not only are these spikes sharpened at the point, but the whole length is jagged with little hooked teeth, and so hard and tough is the substance that long after the blossom has faded, all through autumn and winter, you may see the brown stem and bristly head standing boldly up, facing all the storms of snow and rain, and not lost sight of till summer comes again.

Indeed, from its long endurance in this condition we generally think of a teazel as this hard, dry, bleached object, instead of the beautiful creature it is in its prime, in the middle of July, when the calyx spines are in their full glory of green freshness, and the principal head standing

up in its grandeur, with the little attendant ones on either side, looking like a monarch wearing his crown; for the flowers do not all blossom at once, but come out in bands or circlets round the conical head, so as to resemble a garland bound round it. Truly the teazel thus crowned is a noble warrior of the wayside. And he is to be admired, too, for his patient endurance in firmness and strength long after his brightest days are past.

The leaves of the teazel are curious; they are what is called sessile, sitting on the stem, that is to say, without leaf-stalks; they grow in pairs, and the lower ones meet quite together and join at the bottom, forming but one leaf round the stem, and making a deep cup, which after rain is often to be found filled with water; indeed I have seen this pretty green pond well filled, even in the midst of a dry summer, so as to keep the leaves strong, healthy, and fresh, as long as they are required to draw in air for the growing seed.

The teazel is of importance to the making of cloth, for the little delicate yet firm hooks are better than anything that man, with all his machinery, has ever been able to devise for raising the nap without tearing the cloth itself. For this purpose large fields of teazels are grown in the manufacturing counties, their heads are cut off and fixed in a frame, well sorted according to their sizes, and the cloth being damped and spread out on a table, they are drawn across it, and the little claws just raise the threads sufficiently to give the soft woolliness of effect. So much did the cloth-makers of old value the teazel that three teazel heads are the arms of the Clothiers' Company.

CHAPTER XXX

OLIVES

Or the great tribe of compound flowers we spoke in quite early September days with the thistle and the daisy (see Chapter VIII.) So we did of the next tribe, the bell flowers

-as last bells of summer (Chapter VII. p. 45); and in the same chapter we had the heaths (p. 47), last bells too, only that they ring a chime of eight, and the bell flowers one of five.

Nearly related to these are the beautiful American plants, azaleas and kalmias, belonging to this class. I think the bud of the great white kalmia, or calico flower, as it is called in America, one of the prettiest things I know; and the flower pinned down with its eight regular stamens is very elegant. The stamens have the same curious property of springing up and shedding their pollen as the barberry. These are not apt to be seen out of grand gardens, and the only one of the race that is apt to come in small people's way is the rhododendron, a very splendid mountain dweller, who has made himself, his evergreen leaves, and bunches of crimson or lilac blossoms, nearly at home in our climate. One small sort grows in Switzerland; and the Asiatic ranges of mountains are the proper abode of the handsome ones, where they keep high

enough to be out of the great heat, but too low for perpetual snow; and when planted here, in peat or bog, or anything like mountain soil, they grow like natives, flourish, and attain a great size. All these three, however, kalmia, azalea, and rhododendron, have honey, which is good for bees, but not good for man; and there are stories, both ancient and modern, of very serious illnesses being caused by eating honey made entirely from these flowers.

Also another set of bell-shaped blossoms with berries good to eat. They grow on mountains and in bogs, and in many sorts bear berries-many berries. These have stiff white blossoms and low shrubby stems, they grow on a peaty soil, chiefly on mountains or bogs, and their berries, either red or purple, have a pleasant sharpness, which makes them very good for tarts or for jam. I have heard a lady say, who spent her younger days in a town on the borders of the New Forest, that all the tarts to be bought there in shops were made of whortleberries, and very sour they were. Now the cranberries most used in tarts are imported from America; but many mountain children in our own country still gather them for market, and the children who have learnt that pretty book, Moral Songs, will not have forgotten the little sick boy's gift of purple berries to the kind lady.

The primrose tribe came into pentagon flowers in May (p. 19). Among them too are reckoned the pretty cyclamen of our gardens, and the loose-strifes, very different from the purple kind we spoke of in the last subclass. They are the tall yellow loose-strife, with its shining yellow spikes, by the river side, and its pretty trailing brother, the moneywort, or creeping jenny, with leaves in pairs, and polished yellow blossoms, creeping on the moist hedge bank in long wreaths, which make ready-made

garlands for little girls' heads, and hangs over window boxes in London; and a third kind, the yellow pimpernel, with thin leaves and bright golden stars of blossom.

Then comes the true pimpernel, the shepherd's weatherglass. Bright little thing, one of the three scarlet flowers of sober England; does not every one know it and like it, even though we must call it a weed? Surely it may grow under currant bushes and among cabbages without offence, though it must be turned out of our flower beds. Its Latin name, Anagallis, is derived from a Greek word meaning a laugh, and certainly it does laugh in the sunshine, which it loves so much that it shuts up its leaves not only in the evening on cloudy days, but when there is rain in the air-little weatherwise thing. Its blossoms are on long slender stems, and its round urns of capsules turn down to the earth to ripen the fruit. The stamens are covered with a beautiful soft down, and the leaves grow in pairs. Sometimes you may find a pimpernel exactly like this in everything, except that the corolla is a rich deep blue. We had one single plant in our kitchen garden some ten or twelve years ago which we thought a great prize. Now its descendants have spread all over that part of the garden, and sometimes, from the pollen of the scarlet and blue getting mixed, as I suppose, there come up pale lilac pimpernels, not so pretty, but curious. A third kind of these laughing flowers is found in wet places, the delicate bog pimpernel, white, striped with pink, growing in long trailing wreaths, with little round leaves in pairs. A large handsome sort, very rich blue, looking like my own blue pimpernel magnified, is grown in gardens by its company name of Anagallis.

All these beauties are five stamened, but the jessamines have only two stamens. Most of them are very regular,