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Another chorus was heard from a basket of flowers of stupendous size. Among the natural and artificial blossoms sat and lay upon leaves and in the calyxes of the flowers child genii, who flung to the Emperor beautiful bouquets, and into the laps and at the feet of the ladies in the tent smaller ones and single flowers. Barbara, too, did not go with empty hands.

His recent series of Water-lilies expressed all the melancholic and fresh charm of quiet basins, of sweet bits of water blocked by rushes and calyxes.

Here all around her stood a crowd of slender columns, their shafts crowned with gracefully curved flower calyxes, like stems supporting lilies, over her head she saw in the ceiling an image of the midnight sky with the bright, unresting and ever-restful stars; the planets and fixed stars in their golden barks looked down on her silently.

II. The stamens and pistils of flowers shew evident marks of sensibility, not only from many of the stamens and some pistils approaching towards each other at the season of impregnation, but from many of them closing their petals and calyxes during the cold parts of the day.

The Trifolium subterraneum, subterraneous trefoil, is another plant, which buries its seed, the globular head of the seed penetrating the earth; which, however, in this plant may be only an attempt to conceal its seeds from the ravages of birds; for there is another trefoil, the trifolium globosum, or globular woolly-headed trefoil, which has a curious manner of concealing its seeds; the lower florets only have corols and are fertile; the upper ones wither into a kind of wool, and, forming a bead, completely conceal the fertile calyxes.

Near the river I found a splendid plant, which had been first observed by my son Johnston; he took it for a Lasiopetalum, but I expect it will prove to be a species of Solanum; it grows two or three feet high, with large purple flowers, with calyxes like brown velvet; the leaves are irregularly shaped, acuminate, about two inches long, and an inch and a half wide at their broadest parts; the stems are prickly, and all the leaves covered with a down as in Lasiopetalum.

Slender dragon-flies and smaller busy insects flitted buzzing from flower to flower, sucking honey from the brimming calyxes and bearing to others the seeds needed to form fruit. The songs of finches and the twitter of white-throats echoed from many a bush by the wayside. In the forest they were surrounded by delightful shade animated by hundreds of loud and low voices far away and close at hand.

In a garden are flowers varying in hue and form and size. The roses blow red and white and pink, scenting the air with their myriad petals, the lilies lift up their delicate calyxes to the wandering bee, the perfumed violets hide their modest heads in beds of green, and the fuchsias sway from their stems in languid beauty. But varied as are the flowers in charm, each is perfect of its kind.

Here all around her stood a crowd of slender columns, their shafts crowned with gracefully curved flower calyxes, like stems supporting lilies, over her head she saw in the ceiling an image of the midnight sky with the bright, unresting and ever-restful stars; the planets and fixed stars in their golden barks looked down on her silently.

It had rained all night; but by eleven o'clock the dear old garden was quite dry, and how sweet it did look! The pink roses twinkled and winked their whisker-like calyxes as she went by; the white ones shook their serene leaves, and sent out delicious smells. Every green thing looked greener than it had done before the rain.