times, too, of a man with a purple cap on his head and a beard on his chin.

It is probably to the very smiling face of this purplecapped gentleman that the flower owes its name of heart'sease. Village children generally call it love-anidles, which unmeaning word they have made out of its old English name of love in idleness. It is also called pansy, from the French pensée, a thought, and sometimes by the very funny name of "three faces under one hood."

CHAPTER V

JUNE FLOWERS

The Apple and the Rose

JUNE is come, and the rugged, crooked thorns, which all the winter looked like worn, bent, hoary old men, are now come out like fair young maidens, in robes of green and veils of white; and as then the old gentlemen reminded us of summer by wearing here and there a bunch of green mistletoe, so now the young ladies remind us of winter by wearing their white like snow upon the branches. Very like snow indeed, as you will find if you go and stand under the tree, for the wind brings down whole showers of the petals on the grass below.

What is the inside of the flower like ? The structure may be seen enlarged in the apple blossom or the wild rose, and it will be easier to understand if we look at them. Here is a wild crab, that will not be too crabbed to spare us a branch of pink and white flowers. What a multitude of yellow stamens! But I thought you said, when you told us about the buttercup, that all the manystamened flowers, which you called by a hard name beginning with poly, were poisonous, and how can that be if the apple is one of them?

Well, you are right. I did say that all the polyandria or many-stamened class were poisonous, but look here. Gather a buttercup from under your feet, or look in the next field for a scarlet poppy; I daresay there are more there than the farmer wishes, in spite of their gay red coats.

Now pull off the calyx of the crowfoot. It does not make much difference to the flower, and none at all to the stamens. As to the poppy, it only used its calyx for a nightcap, when it was in bud, and ungratefully split it in two, and threw it away, as soon as it opened to daylight. You may see some in the act of performing this operation, the calyx already parted from the stem, and the scarlet petals crumpled up within it.

But how shall we pull off the calyx of the rose or apple blossom? It will not come without pulling the whole flower to pieces; nay, it even seems a part of this great solid green lump on which the whole is perched.

This is the difference, knowing which, you could tell what plants might safely be eaten if you were cast on a desert island, with no monkey to taste for you. All the plants which have stamens growing out of the calyx are harmless, all those which can spare their calyx without injury to the stamens are hurtful.

Besides, how different the seed-vessel is. The poppy's great pistil is like an urn, and when the seed is ripe, the upper part rises up on little supports all round, so as to let out the seed, and the cover is beautifully ornamented.

But what is the seed-vessel of the apple tree? Who can tell? Yet in autumn you have a great liking for that same seed-vessel, which now you cannot even recollect. Must I describe it? The seeds are ten in number, in pairs, within five cells formed of two valves, all enclosed within

a globe, fleshy, covered with a green rind, with a slight tinge of red.

Ah! ha! The apple itself! Yes, to be sure, and the pips are the seeds, and the core the valves forming the cells. There is a discovery for you, which I daresay you will remember when you screw up your eyes, next autumn, with eating sharp apples, and find a hard piece of core in your mouth. Perhaps then you will look for the calyx, and you will find it risen in the world, mounted up on the top of the apple, forming what people call the eye, very much shrivelled and very small.

As to the young apple, it is no other than the large round germ beneath the flower, from which the calyx seems to grow. It is in fact five germs grown together, each contributing two pips, and a fifth part of the apple and their five styles and stigmas are to be seen above, in the midst of their rich nest of yellow stamens, and the outer walls of beautiful blushing pink and white, which are so lightly fastened on that they are soon blown away.

How great is the kindness which has dressed our useful friend in such robes as these! Nor is the apple tree less beautiful in his autumn garb, gnarled and crooked though he be. Who would wish to see anything much prettier than the red, yellow, and green apples that dot his branches all over? Some sorts in shining smooth crimson, some red shading into green, some red and yellow, some so pure and fair a green and pink that it reminds one of a delicate cheek; some again little crumpled things in russet brown and green or old worn-out yellow. And, as apple eaters soon learn, they are an excellent lesson not to trust too much to the outside.

In counties where cider is made, the glory of the apple tree descends in time, and huge piles of golden red and

yellow are heaped up on the grass at the foot of the trees. Now and then these piles have beautiful visitors--the great Red Admiral butterflies, with their brown velvet wings, edged with scarlet, and brightened with white, sometimes come in great numbers to flutter over them. I have counted as many as sixty of these beautiful creatures at one heap, some flying, others at rest, slowly opening and closing their wings to enjoy the heat of the sun.

The pear is almost exactly like the apple in the structure of both flower and fruit. In the perry-making counties, the trees stand up alone in the fields, and raise their white garlands after a glorious manner against the blue summer sky.

The cherry, the apricot, peach, and nectarine, are all of the same family. None of these, as you well know, if sprung from seed, will produce good fruit unless they are grafted with a branch from a better tree, which is set into their stem, plastered over with clay, and in time is joined on so as to make one with them, so that being nourished with their sap it grows, and brings fruit like its own parent tree. Even the seed of a good apple would, if ungrafted, produce only sour worthless crabs.

Is not this like ourselves, born wild and worthless, but with grace planted in our hearts at baptism, so as to enable us to bring forth good, not "wild fruit," and should not the grafting of a tree put us in mind to pray that God will "graft in our hearts the love of His name, increase in us true religion, and nourish us with all goodness"?

What we call the laurel, and the Portugal laurel, with their pretty spikes of white blossoms and evergreen leaves, are brethren of the apple, though I would not advise you to eat their purple berries, as though not actually poison