NARCISSUS.

This flower derives its name from the following mythological circumstance. Narcissus, son of Cephisus, a Liriope, was so handsome, that all the nymphs fell in love with him; but he slighted them all. Echo, among the rest, could not influence him to regard her; returning, however, one day from the chace, he looked into a fountain, and was so enamoured of his own beauty, that he languished away, and was metamorphosed into a flower, which from that time bore his name.

ACANTHA.

"There the Acantha hides its head."

Acantha, a young and beautiful nymph, who, for having given a favourable reception to Apollo, was changed into a plant of the same

name.

THE COWSLIP.

"Cowslip, of all beloved, of all admired!

Thee let me sing, the homely shepherd's pride;
Fit emblem of the maid I love, a forin

Gladdening the sight of man; a sweet perfume,
Sending its balmy fragrance to the soul,

Daughter of Spring and Messenger of May,
Which shall I first declare, which most extol,

Thy sovereign beauties, or thy sovereign use?"

The Cowslip derives its name from a very old and fanciful, but now exploded idea; that this flower was generated from the saliva of the cow's lip; to corroborate which, it has been stated, that it is only found in pastures where milch cows have grazed. It is, however, known as the Yellow-bell, and is classed with the blue and hare bell, and has made its appearance where the cow was never known to have been. Genial weather at the commencement of the year, dresses the meadows and pastures with this favourite of Flora.

THE DAISY.

"There is a flower, a little flower,

With silver crest and golden eye,
That welcomes every changing hour,]
And weathers every sky.

The prouder beauties of the field,
In gay but quick succession shine;
Race after race their honours yield,
They flourish and decline.

But this small flower, to nature dear,
While Moon and Stars their courses run,
Wreaths the whole circle of the year,
Companion of the Sun.

Montgomery.

Passing the eye from the hedge-row to the earth, it lights on the "wee-tipp'd" emblem of modesty-the daisy, sung by poets of every clime where it blows, and so sweetly by our own, "Montgomery," who has designated it the Companion of the Sun.

That modest little flower, the daisy, derives its name from day's eye, arising from the circumstance of unfolding its simple beauties at the "peep o' day," and earlier than any other of Flora's tribe.— Flora's Guide.

Violet, violin, violincello, are all derived from viol, signifying sweet; applicable to either sound or smell: the latter syllables being merely to distinguish, or harmonize.

TULIPS.

"So beauty fades, so fleets its showy life,
As droops the tulip, clad in all its pride
Of rich array."

This beautiful, but short-lived flower, was first introduced into this country by lord Arlington, in the reign of Charles 2d. The tulip opens with the rising and shuts with the setting sun. The bulb is termed by Linnæus, the hybernacle, or winter lodge of the young plant, and closes the infant in its folds, which

"In some lone cave, secure pavilion, lies,

And waits the courtship of serener skies."-Darwin. Tulip-fancying has been carried to great excess. It is related, that a connoiseur in the fancy, hearing of a person having in his possession a black tulip, instantly ordered his carriage and proceeded to the possessor's residence; expressed a desire to see this rara avis, which was instantly shown him; upon which, he immediately offered 100 guineas for the same! This was refused: two hundred was offered, but refused also; whereupon, three hundred was bid, and the bargain struck. The virtuosi, on getting the tulip in his possession, immediately cut it in piece-meal, before the astonished grower of it, exclaiming at the same time, "Now, I am the only possessor of a black tulip in the whole country!" It turned out, that he had one in his own garden, but as he could not endure another to possess a similar freak of nature, he took this means to insure it.

The names of emperors, kings, statesmen, nobles, and heroes, have been given to tulips. The cognomens of the eminently fair sex, have also been selected as their distinctive appellations; and it is no uncommon thing to find in one bed together, Don Juan and Queen Charlotte, the Duke of Wellington and the Lass of Richmond Hill, and George the Fourth and Nell Gwynn!

The christening of a tulip is generally performed over a bowl of punch; the cup of the plant is floated in the bowl, then taken out and filled with the jovial liquor, which is generally drank by some of the party, risking the further christening of their clothes, owing to the tender fabric of Flora's cup.

WEEPING WILLOWS.

"We pass a gulph in which the willows dip

Their pendant boughs, stooping as if to drink."

The first Weeping Willow supposed to have been planted in England, was by Pope, which for a long time was known as Pope's Weeping Willow. Martyn says, "the famous and admired weeping willow, planted by Pope, which has lately been felled to the ground, (1801), came from Spain, enclosing a present for lady Suffolk. Mr. Pope was in company when the covering was taken off; he observed, that the pieces of stick appeared as if they had some vegetation; and added, perhaps they may produce something we have not in England. Under this idea he planted it in his garden, and it produced the Willow Tree that has given birth to so many others."

PASSION FLOWER.

This flower, says the elegant author of the "Flora Domestica," derives its name from an idea, that all the instruments of Christ's Passion are represented in it, viz.-the five wounds, the column or pillar of scourging, besides the three nails, the crown of thorns, &c. Most of the Passion flowers are natives of the hottest parts of America.

DAMASK ROSE.

The Damask Rose was brought into England in the year 1522, from Damascus, by Dr. Linacre, physician to King Henry the 8th.

LILY, &c.

The lily came from the Levant, the jessamine from the East Indies, the tube-rose from Java and Ceylon, the carnation and pink from Italy, and the aricula from Switzerland. Introduced in the reign of Charles 2d.

HOLLYHOCK.

This is merely a corruption from Holy-oak, a tree or flower held in much estimation by the Lady Abbesses and Nuns of old; and which abounded in the gardens of convents, it being considered by them as possessing sacred and protecting qualities.

ROSEMARY.

"Come, funeral flower! who lov'st to dwell
With the pale corse in lonely tomb,

And throw across the desert gloom

A sweet decaying smell.

Come, press my lips, and lie with me
Beneath the lowly alder tree;

And we will sleep a pleasant sleep,
And not a care shall dare intrude
To break the marble solitude,

So peaceful and so deep."

Rosemary is a small but very odoriferous shrub; the principal use of it is to perfume chambers, and in decoctions for washing. Its botanical name is rosmarinus, so called from ros, dew, and marinus, alluding to its situation on the sea shore. It is seen mantling the rocks of the Mediterranean in winter, with its grey flowers glittering with dew.

HOLLY.

"Fairest blossoms drop with every blast,

But the brown beauty will like hollies last.-Gay.

The Holly, or Ilex, is supposed to derive its name from the season in which it particularly flourishes (Christmas), being kept as holy by all who profess the faith of Christ. Of this tree there are several species, some of which produce yellow berries and some white.

SALADS.

Oil for salads is mentioned in the Paston Letters in 1466, in which year Sir John Paston writes to his mother, that he has sent her "ij potts off oyl for saladys, whyche oyl was goode as myght be when he delyv'yd yt, and schuld be good at the reseyving yf itt was not mishandled nor mycarryd." This indicates that vegetables for the table were still cultivated in England, although the common opinion is, that most of our fruits and garden productions were destroyed during the civil wars between the houses of York and Lancaster. A good salad, however, had become so scarce some years afterwards, that Katherine, the queen of Henry 8th, is said, on a particular occasion, to have sent to the Continent to procure one. Salad herbs were common some years afterwards.

POTATOES.

The Board of Agriculture Report tells us (of this most useful and now universally well-known root) that it is a native of America, and was familiar to the Indians before the conquest of Mexico and Peru. It was called by them, amongst other names, “openauk ;" and in the History of the new-found-land Virginia, by Heriot (a follower of Sir Walter Raleigh, and printed in 1588), is described as “a kinde of root of round form, some of the bigness of wallnuts, some farre greater, which are found in moist and marish grounds, growing many together one with the other in ropes, as if they were fastened by a string." "Being boyled," he says, "or sodden, they are verie good meate." Gerrard, in his "Herbal," is the first author who gives the figure of the potato plant. He calls it by the name of "polarum tuberosum, ," which name has been followed by Linnæus and his disciples. Sir Walter Raleigh, after returning from America in 1586, is said to have first given it to his gardener in Ireland, as a fine fruit from America, and which he desired him to plant in his kitchen garden in the spring. In August this plant flourished, and in September produced a fruit, but so different to the gardener's expectation, that in an ill humour he carried the potato-apple to his master. “Is this," said he, "the fine fruit from America you prized so highly?” Sir Walter either was or pretended to be ignorant of the matter, and told the gardener, since that was the case, to dig up the weed and throw it away. The gardener soon returned with a good parcel of potatoes. It was cultivated in the gardens of the nobility and gentry, early in the seventeenth century, as a curious exotic, and towards the close of it (1684) was planted out in the fields, in small patches, in Lancashire, from whence it was gradually propagated all over the kingdom, as well as in France. The reader who is desirous of investigating the curious qualities which were ascribed to this root in queen Elizabeth's days, is referred to what the author of the "Pursuits of Literature" calls the "potato note" of Mr. Collins, at the end of Shakspeare's "Troilus and Cressida." Though tolerably com

mon, they were in James the First's time considered as a great delicacy, and are noticed among various other articles to be provided for the queen's household; the quantity of them was at this time, however, extremely small, and the price what would now be thought excessive-viz. 2s. per pound.

PLANTING POTATOES IN SCOTLAND,

Henry Prentice was the first person in Scotland who planted potatoes, and lived for a long time in the sanctuary of Holyrood House, and died about twenty years ago at a very advanced age. He was a bachelor, and lived by himself, and had no near relations, and being apprehensive that he might want a coffin when he died, he had one made, which he hung from the roof of his house like a bird-cage. He had saved a little money from his earnings as a gardener, which he sunk in an annuity with the magistrates of Canongate, (who agreed to let him have a good grave in their church-yard in the bargain), and he lived long enough to eat up four times the original sum. This eccentric and most remarkable character, is said to have suggested to lord Somerville, the culture of potatoes, who was the first who planted a field.

Chamber's Traditions of Edinbro'.

CABBAGES.

According to Evelyn, in his "Sylva," even so ordinary but useful a legume as a cabbage, was in 1539 first imported from the Netherlands. Many years after this, it seems, that England was still supplied with cabbages from Flanders. Bullein, in his "Boke of Simples," written in 1562, observes on this vegetable, that "it is good to make pottage withall, and is a profitable herbe in the common wealthe, which the Fleminges sell deare, but we have it growinge in our owne gardens, if we would preferre our owne comodityes," &c. He adds, "there be greate plenty growing between Albrought and Horthworth, in Suffolke, upon the sea shore." Cauliflowers were as uncommon near the same time, and sold then and afterwards very high. As late as 1619, two cauliflowers cost 3s., and sixteen artichokes 3s. 4d., prices which would now be deemed extravagant, but they were at that time esteemed rarities, as they still are in remote parts of the kingdom.

RADISHES, &c.

Bullein, just quoted, says of this root, in 1562, "of radish rootes there be no small store growing about the famous citie of London, though they be more plentiful than profitable, and more noysome than nourishing to man's nature." Of garden productions mentioned in a MS. of the Steward of Sir Edward Coke, while Attorney General, between 1596-7, onions, leeks, carrots, and radies, seem to have been chiefly used to make pottage for the poor. Holinshed tells us, in his "Chronicle," written about this time, "such herbes, fruites, and rootes also as growe yearlie out of the ground of seed, had become verie plentifull in this land in the time of the First Edward, and after his daies; but in processe of time they grew also to be neglected, so that from Henrie the Fourth till the latter end of Henrie the Seventh, and beginninge of Henry the Eighth, there was little or no use of them in England, but they remained either unknowne, or supposed as food more mete for hogs and savage beasts to feed upon them than mankind; whereas, in my time, their use is not only re