f granular glass as that of
the calyx.

But now let me examine this blossom just expanded this morning,--the
very first of the season, by the way. I must have a low power for this,
eighty diameters, or so. Oh, how exquisite! The little saucer of five
oval petals, each of snowy whiteness, bearing its bow of lovely crimson
specks, with a spot of gamboge-yellow for the chord, and the whole
sparkling with glassy points as before. The pale red germen in the
centre, rising into two points of snow, their rosy tips pressed close
together, as if the twins were kissing. The ten stamens, five short
alternating with five long ones, and each bearing its pretty
kidney-shaped anther of pale scarlet. No; all are not kidney-shaped; for
here is one which has burst, and the grains of red pollen are seen
covering its rough purple surface; and here is one stamen from the
point of which the anther has gone, leaving only two or three
pollen-grains adhering. Behind all, I see the sepals of the calyx,
peeping out between the petals, and forming a fine dark background for
them, and for the longer filaments.

And now I say to my readers, one and all,--you may not have the
opportunity to examine the glorious tropical Orchids, or the gorgeous
Flamboyant, but go and pluck a flower of the London-pride, and you will
have before your eyes such a production of Divine handiwork as may well
excite the admiration and adoration of an angel.

[203] Rev. v. 11.

[204] Edwards's _Voyage up the Amazon_, 194.

[205] _Travels on the Amazon and Negro_, 222.

[206] _Voy. a la Nouv. Guinee._

[207] _Amer. Ornith._

[208] Edwards's _Voy. up the Amazon_, 143.

[209] _Martial_, xiii. 72.

[210] _Windsor Forest._

[211] See _Good Words_ for April 1861.

[212] _Wordsworth_.

[213] _Wanderings in N. S. Wales_, &c., ii. 43.

[214] _Zool._, 3060.

[215] Low's _Sarawak_, 87.

[216] Tennent's _Ceylon_, i. 250.

[217] Ellis's _Visit to Madagascar_, 313.

[218] _Nat. Voyage_, ch. xviii.

[219] Poeppig.--_Nov. Gen. et Sp._, i. 54.

[220] Lindley's _Sertum Orchid._; pi. xxvi.

[221] _Himal. Journ._, ii. 58.

[222] _Himal. Journals_, i. 126.

[223] Low's _Sarawak_, 65.

[224] The writer by this term doubtless alludes to the panicles or heads
_compounded_ of many individual flowers; for the plant does not belong
to the order _Compositae_, but to _Byttneriaceae_.

[225] Ellis's _Madagascar_, p. 390.

[226] Ellis's _Visits to Madagascar_, 57.

[