There are other but rarer British species of the genus Teucrium. Irregular, like the Labiates, but with its corolla personate, or mask-like, the great snapdragon or frog's-mouth (Antirrhinum majus) is found generally in suspicious neighbourhood to some garden; and that pretty little creeper, the ivy-leaved toadflax (Linaria cymbalaria) with a tiny corolla closely resembling the last in form, is equally open to the charge of straying from cultivated ground; of the genus Linaria, or toad-flax, the large yellow Linaria vulgaris is the most common, and must be familiar to all. The creeping toad-flax, somewhat similar in form, but with pale, bluish-veined flowers, is much rarer, and, indeed, like most of the other species, is not generally met with.

OCTOBER.

"FAREWELL! farewell! bright children of the sun,
Whose beauty rose around our path where'er
We wandered forth since vernal days begun,
The glory and the garland of the year.

Ye came the children of the spring's bright promise;
Ye crowned the summer in her path of light,

And now, when autumn's wealth is passing from us,
We gaze upon your parting bloom.

*

*

*

Sweet flowers, adieu !"

*

FRANCES BRowNE.

LOTн, indeed, are we to say to the flowers, "adieu!" so loth, that some few late blossoms have we kept for our readers, even to this tenth month of the year. They may have gathered them already, perhaps have made their intimate acquaintance; if so, the notice of a well-known form should not be the less welcome.

Here is one, a not unfrequent way-side plant. It has no gay blossom to recommend it; but possibly its large, deep green, and very triangular leaves, may have attracted attention to its spikes of green inconspicuous flowers. Our friend bears the honest name of Good King Henry, or mercury goose-foot; its botanical alias being Chenopodium bonus Henricus. The goose-foot or Chenopodium genus has already been alluded to, and mention made of the powdery meal-like substance which covers the leaves of some of its species. In the Good King Henry, this is absent, the leaves somewhat resembling those of spinach in appearance, and being at times used as a substitute for that vegetable. How came we so long to have passed by a plant which has been reminding us of its presence many a time in the course of our flower gathering-an unpleasant, but withal a useful plant-the common nettle (Urtica dioica), for it deserves some notice. Famed is it for dietetic and medicinal virtues, and nettle broth and nettle juice are well esteemed by the wise women of the country side; nor were the nettle fibres despised by the housewives of old, who made from them their coarser household napery, and dyed their yarn with the roots. But enough of economics. Gather a nettle "grasp it like a man of mettle," and then it will not "sting you for your pains;" but the examination will repay you for them. Under the magnifying power of the lens, each little nettle flower, male or female, whichever it may be, is really pretty, and having examined these, you may transfer your attention to the numberless little stings which arm the whole surface of the plant. If the magnifying power

Fig. 150.

is sufficient, you will observe that each sting is a very sharp, almost elegantly-shaped polished spineFig. 150-which is hollow, and arises from a swollen base. In this base, which is composed of small cells, is contained the venom; moreover, these cells are continuous with the hollow tubular sting; so that when, in consequence of pressure, the latter pierces the skin, the venom is at the same instant expressed. Its effect is too well known experimentally to require description: neither need we describe the plant. There are, however, two other species of nettle found in this country; one, the Urtica pilulifera, or Roman nettle, is the most venomous of the British species; it is not general, and even where found is a doubtful native the other species, Urtica urens, or small nettle, is very widely distributed. It is smaller in every way than the large common nettle, and its leaves are much more deeply cut in comparison with their size. The nettles generally are by no means home plants, the common one at least extends its borders throughout Europe, and even reaches the far-off Japanese fingers.

These poisonous nettles have a harmless British relative in the common wall pellitory, (Parietaria officinalis) a plant which attracts the eye, partly on account of its usual place of growth being the crevices of old walls and such-like places, where it finds its congenial nitrous nourishment, and partly from the reddish tinge which pervades it. It has been flowering since June; but even now its hairy,

It is the comhave not yet

red-looking stems may be found bearing its hairclothed flowers, which are collected in the axils of its alternate, loosely-hung leaves. Despised as our native nettles may be, they have yet some most highly-prized and aristocratic relations abroad; among others, the fig and the mulberry, and many more we might enumerate did space permit. One British connexion, moreover, yields to none either as regards beautiful growth or useful properties. mon hop (Humulus lupulus), which we mentioned, though we doubt not some of our readers have already secured its elegant stems and leaves and flower catkins upon the paper of their dried collections. The catkins of the hop-Fig. 151 -which are the parts collected for the sake of their well-known aromatic bitter, are the female blossoms.

Fig. 151.

Even the most nettly of the human species seem to have some friend or other, and our acquaintance the common nettle has one which seems peculiarly to delight in such society, for it chiefly shares its favours between it and the thistle. The plant is the parasitic dodder, a very curious but not uncommon vegetable production, which not only clings round, but grows upon its prickly supporters, by means of its very long, red, twine-like stems, and little bud-like attachments, repaying their protection with the ornament of its pale orange-coloured blossoms. If any of our readers have found the

plant-it flowers chiefly in September-they may have wondered at its strangeness; but once having seen a description, they cannot fail to recognise at least the dodders generally, from their mode of growth and parasitic situation. Of the other three species found in Britain, one which grows on flax, and another on clover, are doubtful natives; the third, the lesser dodder (Cuscuta epithymum) is the commonest of all, growing on gorse or whinbush, or heath, and, as its name Epithymum indicates, on the thyme. Lest some of our readers should not understand what is meant by a parasitic plant, we may explain that it is one which, instead of being fixed in the ground, and drawing sustenance from the soil, is fixed upon some other plant from which it derives nourishment. The most remarkable instance noticed in these papers is the well-known mistletoe ; the dodders just alluded to furnish us with another example. The scaly toothwort noticed in April, is likewise parasitic, and nearly resembles another genus of similarly growing plants-the broom-rapes (Orobanche). These, however, as well as the toothwort, grow more generally upon the roots than upon the upper parts of the plants. The Orobanches are brown or purple-looking, scaly, leafless vegetables, more or less succulent. Although noticed thus late, they flower generally in August and September. They are most general on the roots of the pea-tribes, such as clover, broom, gorse, &c., but are also found on others. A queer-looking family are they, and so we dismiss them and turn to a more flower-looking friend, one that almost reminds us of spring, the pretty autumn crocus, or meadow saffron (Colchicum