"Cruel love is no more to be satisfied with tears than grass with the streams, the bees with cytisus, or goats with leaves."

Many persons suppose the Cytisus of the ancients to be the Cytisus Maranthæ, which was removed by Tournefort into another genus, and is now called Tree Medick, or Moon Trefoil (Medicago Arborea). This shrub abounds in the islands of the Archipelago; the Turks make the handles of their sabres of it, and the monks of Patmos their beads. It does not thrive well in this country.

The bright blossoms of the Laburnum have not escaped the attention of our poets. Mr. Keats, in two distinct passages of his earliest poetry, each representing the flowery nook most beautiful to his fancy, gives a place to the Laburnum:

"A bush of May-flowers with the bees about them;
Ah, sure no tasteful nook would be without them:
And let a lush laburnum oversweep them,

And let long grass grow round the roots to keep them
Moist, cool, and green; and shade the violets,

That they may bind the moss in leafy nets.

Where the dark-leaved laburnum's drooping clusters
Reflect athwart the stream their yellow lustres,
And intertwined the cassia's arms unite
With its own drooping buds, but very white."

-"Laburnum, rich

In streaming gold."

COWPER'S TASK.

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It is curious to observe how some plants appear to be compounded of others. Thus the Camellia Japonica has been noticed as resembling a bay-tree with roses; the arbutus is like another species of bay, yielding strawberries; and the Laburnum seems like a tree made up of large trefoil and garlands of yellow peas. The Geranium kind seems to delight in this species of mimicry.

When the Laburnum tree is so situated as to be shaded from the scorching suns of noon, it thrives so much better as to appear, to a superficial observer, a tree of a different kind.

CORYMBIFERE.

DAHLIA.

SYNGENESIA POLYGAMIA SUPERFLUA.

French, georgine; Italian, Giorgina. Georgina is its English name, but it is generally called by the botanical appellation.

THE Dahlia was named in honour of Andrew Dahl, a Swedish botanist. There are several species, all natives of the mountainous parts of the Spanish settlements in South America. Two of them, the fertile rayed (Dahlia superflua) and the barren rayed (Dahlia frustranea), are in common cultivation in our nurseries: a third (Dahlia crocata) was introduced in 1816. The flowers are large and handsome; mostly red or purple, and the colours beautifully vivid. It is a very lofty plant, and the foliage is coarse and rank. It is thought to grow less luxuriantly, and to flower better, if planted in a poor and gravelly soil, in the open ground: they may, however, be obtained in pots. They will bear open air; and the roots will live a long time out of the earth without injury. The best time to plant them is in April. A recent improvement in the culture of this beautiful plant is to graft the young buds upon the tubers. They do not require much water.

This flower, comparatively a stranger in England till lately, from its great beauty has become very popular. It blows about the end of September, or the beginning of October, and when in flower, it makes a brilliant figure in the nursery-gardens, where many are planted together, and of various colours. It makes a fine show in a bouquet too, but will not long survive the gathering.

flowers are as magnificent as the peony itself.

The double

The best account of the Dahlia is to be found in the second part of the Transactions of the Horticultural Society, by R. A. Salisbury, Esq.

CORYMBIFERE.

DAISY.

BELLIS.

SYNGENESIA POLYGAMIA SUPERFLUA.

The botanical name is derived from the Latin word bellus, handsome. In Yorkshire called Dog-daisy and Bairnwort. The word Daisy is a compound of day's and eye, Day's-eye; in which way, indeed, it is written by Ben Jonson.-French, la paquerette; paquerette vivace ; paquette; marguerite [pearl]; petite marguerite; petite consire: in Languedoc, margarideta.—Italian, margheritena; margherita; pratellina, pratolina [meadow-flower]; bellide; fiore di primavera [springtide-flower.]

WHO can see, or hear the name of the Daisy, the common Field Daisy, without a thousand pleasurable associations! It is connected with the sports of childhood and with the pleasures of youth. We walk abroad to seek it; yet it is the very emblem of home. It is a favourite with man, woman, and child: it is the robin of flowers. Turn it all ways, and on every side you will find new beauty. You are attracted by the snowy white leaves, contrasted by the golden tuft in the centre, as it rears its head above the green grass: pluck it, and you find it backed by a delicate star of green, and tipped with a blush-colour, or a bright crimson.

“Daisies with their pinky lashes" are among the first darlings of spring. They are in flower almost all the year: closing in the evening and in wet weather, and opening on the return of the sun :

“The little dazie, that at evening closes."

"By a daisy, whose leaves spread

Shut t when Titan goes to bed."

SPENSER.

G. WITHERS.

No flower has been more frequently celebrated by our poets, our best poets; Chaucer, in particular, expatiates at

great length upon it. He tells us that the Queen Alceste,
who sacrificed her own life to save that of her husband
Admetus, and who was afterwards restored to the world
by Hercules, was, for her great goodness, changed into a
Daisy. He is never weary of praising this little flower:
"Whan that the month of May

Is comen, and that I heare the foules sing,
And that the floures ginnen for to spring,
Farewell my booke, and my devocion.
Now have I than eke this condicion,
That of all the floures in the mede,

Than love I most these floures white and rede,
Such that men callen daisies in our town:
To them I have so great affectioun,
As I sayd erst, whan comen in the Maie,
That in my bedde there daweth me no daie,
That I nam up, and walking in the mede
To seen this floure ayenst the sunne sprede,
Whan it upriseth early by the morrow,
That blissful sight softeneth my sorrow.
So glad am I, when that I have presence
Of it, to done it all reverence,
As she that is of all floures the floure,
Fulfilled of all vertue and honoure,
And every ilike faire, and fresh of hewe,
And ever I love it, and ever ilike newe,
And ever shall, until mine herte die,
All sweare I not, of this I woll not lie.
There loved no wight nothen in this life,
And whan that it is eve I renne blithe,
As soone as ever the sunne ginneth west,
To seen this floure, how it woll go to rest,
For feare of night, so hateth she darknesse,
Her chere is plainly spred in the brightnesse
Of the sunne, for there it woll unclose :

Of this floure, whan that it should unclose.
Again the sunne, that rose as redde as rose,
That in the brest was of the beast that day
That Angenores daughter ladde away.
And doune on knees anon right I me sette,
And as I coulde, this fresh floure I grette,
Kneeling alway till it inclosed was,
Upon the small soft swete grass,

That was with floures swete embrouded ali,
Of such sweteness, and odour over all,
That for to speak of gomme, herbe, or tree,
Comparison may not imaked be,

For it surmounteth plainly all odoures,
And of riche beaute of floures.

*

And Zephyrus and Flora gentelly
Yave to the floures soft and tenderly,

Hir swete breth, and made hem for to sprede,
As god and goddesse of the flourie mede,
In which me thought I might day by daie,
Dwellen alway the joly month of Maie,
Withouten slepe, withouten meat, or drinke :
Adowne full softly I gan to sinke,
And leaning on my elbow and my side,
The long day I shope me for to abide,
For nothing els, and I shall not lie,
But for to look upon the daisie,
That well by reason men it call may
The daisie, or els the eye of the day,
The emprise, and floure of floures all;
I pray to God, that faire mote she fall,
And all that loven floures for her sake:

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