I believe there is hardly any tree that lives so long as the yew. It is two years before the seed grows at all, and then it is very slow in getting on, and when it has reached its prime it is so hard, and the thick evergreen leaves keep out wet so well, that it is still longer in decaying. Perhaps some of the yew trees may still be green and fresh which stood when they were thought so much of for the archery of England. Perhaps these old fellows gave some of their branches to furnish the tough yew bows which sent the cloth-yard shafts that won the battles of Crecy and Poitiers, and many another besides; and the English yeomen and peasants, thanks to Magna Charta, were well cared for, well protected, prosperous men, willing to use their good yew bows in their monarch's

cause.

Yew branches are the Easter deckings of churches, and sometimes are carried on Palm Sunday, as the nearest approach we have to the palm.

And they have from very old times been grown in churchyards; indeed, King Edward I. made a law that they should be planted there.

The juniper is not unlike the yew, and grows in low gloomy-looking tufts on bleak hillsides. It has dark purple berries, and it has hardly any blossom. You remember that Elijah sat him down under a juniper tree in the wilderness when he requested for himself that he might die, and when the angel came to him and brought him the food that sustained him in his journey to Mount Sinai. However that was not a real juniper, but a sort of broom. The Eastern people hate juniper, and think it is an accursed plant, belonging to the devil. This is very curious, for the notion arose long before strong spirits were distilled, and before Geneva, in Switzerland, made,

and flavoured with juniper berries, that most harmful liquid called gin, which is the ruin of so many souls. I must tell you a story of a juniper bush. There was a very clever Scotchman- -a poor man—who loved flowers, insects, and all things in nature, and knew all about them that could be known from observing them, and from the books he saved his money to buy. Ignorant people laughed at him and thought him foolish, and teased him. At last he said, "Now, daft as you think me, I will foretell something. That lonesome bush of juniper on the hillside, that never yet had a berry, will bear fruit next year." They laughed the more, but he knew that the reason this one bush bore no fruit was that it had no stamen-bearing plant within reach. Therefore, when both sorts were in blossom, he went in secret, cut branches of the stamen-bearing bushes, shook them over the poor solitary one, and in the summer it was so well covered with purple berries that all who saw it began to think there had been a wise man among them.

CHAPTER XXXIII

EVERLASTING FLOWERS

WE have had stamens on the ovary and stamens on the calyx, many-petalled flowers and single-petalled flowers, and now we come to flowers with no petals at all, though sometimes with so bright a calyx that at first sight it may be taken for a corolla.

Thus it is with that handsome garden flower the Marvel of Peru, which has a purple tube like a corolla, but which is really only the calyx.

Little white calyxes form the spike of the polygonum or persicaria tribe, with eight stamens, red stems and leaves, often streaked with black-knot grass in the wheat, pepperwort in bogs, persicaria on heaps of refuse; the only ones of the kind that have a welcome are the buckwheat grown for pheasants, the snake-weed in hay fields, and the handsome greater bistors in running water.

Lastly, before leaving the water we must take the table-cloth of the butterfly and grasshopper. Do you remember?

"A mushroom their table, and on it was laid,

A water-dock leaf, which the table-cloth made."

The water-dock is very handsome, its dark green leaves,

red stems, and strange blossoms make a grand appearance, and here it does little harm, though its relations are some of the most troublesome of weeds, their roots creep so obstinately and are so hard to kill. Even when dug up and left outside the earth they will still shoot out again; and perhaps it is from this steadiness in growing, in spite of adverse circumstances, that one kind has acquired the name of Patience dock. The largest sort of dock is the rhubarb that is made into tarts and bears the very large leaves.

The small sort, called the sorrel-dock, is esteemed by many children for its pleasant sharp taste, and by many a dock leaf is used as a cure for the sting of a nettle.

The dock has three calyx leaves, three red petals, six stamens in a little bunch, three pistils, each possessing a most beautiful little white tufted stigma, and altogether producing one seed.

Another tribe with brightly coloured or chaff-like scales is the amaranth, everlasting flower. Its scales do not soon decay, and the flowers grow close together, some holding five stamens, others two styles. Of these are the purple globe amaranth, also the spike, covered with deep red blossoms, that, when it stands upright we call prince's feather, when it droops, the lovelies-bleeding. Last year I saw a little girl in a railway carriage with the finest love-lies-bleeding I ever met with, it was wound in two or three large coils and tied into her nosegay, otherwise it would have dragged on the floor; I really think that if it had been at its full length it must have measured more than a yard. Cockscombs are amaranths, all their red blossoms gathered into one large spreading head.

Next follow a race not very pretty to look at, though

all of them are wholesome, and some really valuable. These are the goosefoot family, with their tall spikes of small green blossoms, all possessing five stamens and two pistils, and large coarse spreading leaves. There are many

of them growing wild in England, the largest of which was once much valued, and eaten as an excellent and nourishing article of food. You may find it growing on most old dunghills and heaps of rubbish, and may know it by the bright pink colour of the lower part of the stem. Its old names were 66 fat hen," or "Good King Henry ;" after which King Henry I cannot tell, though I had rather call King Henry VI. "good" than any of the other seven. One kind, however, is still favoured by being grown in gardens, and that is the spinach, which makes such a pretty dark green ground for poached eggs to repose upon. Of the same family is the beet, the root of the most beautiful colour that ever comes in our way, so fine is the deep rich red of those concentric rings in the midst of their clear pink juice; and another of the same tribe is the great mangel-wurzel, a German name, which signifies root of scarcity."

And what do you think I am going to set you to examine now ? Don't scream when I tell you it is the nettle yes, the stinging nettle ! Take hold of it boldly; squeeze it well; does it sting? No! how is that? Ha! I hear a little outcry-so you are stung after all. Yes, but not by the stem which you are grasping, but by a leaf which has lightly touched your hand. Is this because the leaves sting and not the stem? No, for the least touch of the stem will cause you a prick, and raise a little burning white head. What is the meaning of this? Perhaps a nettle is like taking trouble, or doing what we do not like-learning a hard task, or taking a dose of physic

P