“ In Eastern Lands they talk in flowers,
And they tell in a garland their loves and cares;
Each blossom that blooms, in their garden bowers,
On its leaves a mystic language bears:
Then gather a wreath from the garden bowers,
And tell the wish of thy heart in flowers.”
Percival.
ACACIA, YELLOW.
A. Farnesiana.
Class 17. Order 10 -Common a. round New Orleans. The same species indigenous to America and India.
Our sands are bare, but smiling there
The Acacia waves her yellow hair,
Lonely and sweet, nor loved the less,
For flowering in the wilderness.
They never felt,
Those summer flies that flit so gaily round thee,
They never felt one moment what I feel
With such a silent tenderness, and keep
So closely in my heart.
Percival.
ALMOND, FLOWERING.
Amygdalus.
Class 12, Order 1. Native of the East, China, Barbary, &c. It flowers early-blossoms, snow white.
The Hope in dreams of a happier hour
Which alights on misery's brow,
Springs out of the silvery Almond flower,
That blooms on a leafless bough.
Moore.
There are hopes
Promising well, and love touched dreams for some,
And passions, many a wild one, and fair schemes
For gold and pleasure.
Oh, if there were not better hopes than these
Were there no palm beyond a feverish fame-
If truth and fervor and devotedness,
Finding no worthy altar, must return
And die with their own fulness—if beyond
The grave there is no heaven in whose wide air
The spirit may find room, and in the love
Of whose bright habitants this lavish heart
May spend itself-what thrice-mocked fools are we?
Willis.
ALTHEA, FRUTEX.
Hibiscus, syriacus.
Class 16, Order 13. (Syrian Mallow) a shrub 4 to 6 feet high. Native of the East. Flowers white and rose color,
The fable of Althea and her unfortunate son, who lost his life in consequence of his love for the beautiful Atalanta—his consuming away as the fatal brand was burning, suggested the emblem of “ Consumed by love."
Flora's Dictionary.
Comfort cannot soothe
The heart whose life is centered in the thought
Of happy loves, once known and still in hope,
Living with a consuming energy.
Percival.
Go, kneel a worshiper at Nature's shrine !
For you her rivers flow, her hills arise ;
For you her fields are green, and fair her skies;
And will you scorn them all to pour your tame
And heartless lays of forced or fancied sighs ?
J. R. Drake.
Class 6. Order 1. Native of the cape of Good Hope, Egypt &c. The flower of the aloe has no calyx. A bitter and medicinal juice is extracted from the leaves.
In climes beneath the solar ray,
Where beams intolerable day,
And arid plains in silence spread,
The pale green Aloe lifts its head-
The mystic branch at moslem's door,
Betokens travel long and sore
In Mecca's weary pilgrimage.
Flora's Dictionary.
All tenderness you seemed,
Gentle and social as a playful child,
But now in lonely superstition wrapped,
As on an icy mountain-top thou sittest
Lonely and unapproachable, or tossed
Upon the surge of passion, like the wreck
Of some proud Tyrian in the stormy sea.
Hillhouse.
Class 19, Order 5. (Prince's feather) a genus of nearly 40 species; almost exclusively confined to India and North America. Only 3 species in Europe -flowers crimson.
Immortal amaranth! a flower which once
In paradise, fast by the tree of life
Began to bloom, but soon, for man's offence,
To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows,
And flowers aloft, shading the tree of life.
Milton.
And with our frames do perish all our loves ?
Do those who took their root and put forth buds,
And their soft leaves unfolded in the warmth
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