until checked by frost. The brilliant blue of their outer florets cannot be imitated by art.

The slender stem of the Blue-Bottle rises to the height of two or three feet; it is angular, hollow, and much branched. The leaves are linear, without any serrature on the margins; the lower leaves are lanceolate and toothed; and their under sides, like the whole stem, are covered with a loose cottony down. It bears large solitary flowers at the ends of the branches, which are slightly swollen just below the involucrum. The florets of the centre are small, of reddish purple, and have black anthers.

of a

The Blue-Bottle received the specific name Cyanusso we read in ancient mythology in memory youth, who spent his days in the fields of waving corn, weaving garlands of such flowers as he found there, so greatly did he admire them. This was his chief favourite, and its rich ultramarine blue was the standard colour which he desired to imitate in his clothing. The fable adds, that he was found lying in a corn-field, dead, surrounded by Blue-Bottles which he had heaped together, and that Flora, grateful for the veneration he had for her divinity, changed his body into the Centaurea Cyanus.

The Corn Blue-Bottle (Centaurea Cyanus) is a hardy annual plant; in the Linnæan system it belongs to the class Syngenesia, and order Superflua, and in the Natural system to the order Cynarocephala.

Of the other species of this flower, the brown radiant Knapweed (C. Jacea) holds the next place in point of attraction. It is found in Sussex and some parts of

108

FAVOURITE FIELD FLOWERS.

Cambridgeshire, but is not at all general in England. The numerous florets of the ray are large and spreading, of a pale crimson colour, while those of the disk are darker coloured, and they have all a long narrow tube.

Next to this is the Black Knapweed (C. nigra), with which the last is frequently confounded. The handsome flowers are large, growing solitary at the extremity of the branches. The florets are very numerous, and those of the ray are long, slender, and tubular, with a large, spreading, five-cleft limb; those of the disk being shorter, and chiefly dark purple. This species is much more common than the preceding one, on the borders of cornfields, and by road sides.

The Greater Knapweed (C. Scabiosa) is chiefly found on chalky soils, and not frequently met with elsewhere throughout the kingdom. It is very abundant in barren pastures and badly cultivated cornfields, and on the borders of fields. The flowers are large, bluish purple, and solitary at the ends of the branches. All the species are in flower from July to September.

SNAP-DRAGON.

Antirrhinum; L. Le muflier; Fr. Der dorant; Ger. Leeuwebeck; Dutch. Antirrino; Ital., Sp., and Port.

Monastic Pile! ages have passed, since first
Thy firm foundations in the earth were laid,
By those whose faith was yet more firmly staid
On Him, Whose glory made thy founders thirst
To rear these walls, that here might be rehearsed
His wonders and His praise, from day to day,

By ardent minds, which here should learn the way
Of heavenly life; in holy thoughts immersed.
Firm was their faith-yet firmer is His word!-
That future ages would revere these walls,
That here, for aye, would holy truths be heard,
Error be eschewed, youth heed duty's calls.
Race after race of men have passed away
Since then, for they "abide not in one stay."

MS.

SUCH were the thoughts which came upon us, as we entered the monastic courts of one of the oldest colleges in our Universities, where we found the singular flower which we are now about to describe. Time-honoured courts are these, where for centuries the flower of British youth have congregated to hear the voice of wisdom; to acquire knowledge which had been accumulated by sages of old, and to the stores of which the most illustrious of these have from generation to generation added largely; while others, in succeeding ages, have spread the light of learning through the land, have taught the unlettered that "Wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, and that all her paths are peace;" dispersed the errors of heathenism, driven away the superstitions of Romish priestcraft, checked the growth of a narrow

minded sectarianism, and taught the purifying and ennobling truths of God's holy word, holding it before the people so as to become perpetually "a lantern unto their feet, and a light unto their paths;" such has been the mission of multitudes who have successively been trained in these "seminaries of sound learning and religious instruction," and nobly for the most part have they fulfilled it.

The Snap-dragon is one of those flowers which demand our attention on account of their remarkable form. There is something at first repulsive in the appearance of this flower; it seems as it were a caricature on the human face divine, and when the finger and thumb are applied at the base of the petals, so as to cause the lips to open, it requires no great stretch of the imagination to fancy that a double row of sharp teeth are about to become visible. We have observed children, on seeing this operation for the first time, instinctively shrink back and give utterance to a faint cry of alarm, and that not a little encouragement has been necessary to induce them to examine the flower more closely, and that they are scarcely to be prevailed upon to take the "frightful ogre" into their tiny hands; and many children of larger growth, such as are endowed with a keen perception of the ridiculous, have we seen amuse themselves with this flower, in noticing the variety of expression which their ingenuity could twist it into.

But we soon dismiss all notion of the ridiculous, when we come to consider the wonderful adaptation of the flower to the situations in which it naturally grows. We find it on the highest rocks, exposed to the full force of the bleak winds which rush across the exposed country around,

or shooting out of the crevices of the highest cliffs which bound the vast seas, or rooted in the chinks of the loftiest towers of aged castles and monastic ruins, where no friendly hill or sheltering tree shrouds it from the howling tempest. Yet in these situations, this frail flower, by the peculiar construction of its corolla, is enabled to perfect its seeds; for neither wind nor rain can obtain an entrance, until fructification has so far advanced as to render their access harmless-indeed, then, the mask, ugly enough to scare away the spirit of the north wind, and to deter that of the east wind from too near an approach, falls off, and courts the favourable and free caresses of the air upon the ripening seed vessel.

The humble bee is especially the gardener by whom this flower is propagated. As it flies in search of the nectareous fluid, all unconscious it bears the pollen to the flower where it will germinate; and by that peculiar faculty which we call instinct, it avails itself of the elasticity of the large blossoms of the Snap-dragon, and pressing open the lips, quickly gains admission, on which the mask immediately closes; and no sooner has it ravished the flower of all its sweetness, than it makes its exit with the same facility as it gained an entrance.

The Snap-dragon has a fibrous root, and throws out numerous stems, nearly erect, from twelve to twenty inches high. The leaves are lanceolate, scattered upon the stem, but opposite on the branches; they are smooth, and the upper surface is a dark green, while the under surface is paler. The flowers are produced in a spike, all fronting one way, towards the greatest light. The corolla is large, and is found of nearly every variety of colour, from rich orange and yellow down to white, with