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The grass in the lane was grown long now, with a pink mist over the top of it; the trees at the sides leaned together heavy with foliage, and the bordering walls were all hidden under bushes and vines. Everywhere on bush and vine were spikes and corymbs of lusty blossoms. Birds were calling to their mates and their young; the locusts were shrilling out of depths of sunlight.

In some countries the young shoots are used for flavoring cakes and other culinary preparations. From the very persistent underground parts annual, usually unbranched stems, sometimes 3 feet tall, are produced in more or less abundance. They bear much-divided, oval, oblong leaves and numerous small, yellow flower-heads in usually crowded corymbs.

But higher still, remark the Bengal roses, sparsely scattered among the laces of the daucus, the plumes of the linaria, the marabouts of the meadow-queen; see the umbels of the myrrh, the spun glass of the clematis in seed, the dainty petals of the cross-wort, white as milk, the corymbs of the yarrow, the spreading stems of the fumitory with their black and rosy blossoms, the tendrils of the grape, the twisted shoots of the honeysuckle; in short, all the innocent creatures have that is most tangled, wayward, wild, flames and triple darts, leaves lanceolated or jagged, stalks convoluted like passionate desires writhing in the soul.

Flowers sweetly scented, white, and in broad corymbs, the feathery appearance of the long, projecting stamens, each tipped with a golden anther, adding considerably to the beauty of the flowers. V. RETICULATUM and V. LAEVIGATUM are rarely seen species, but of interest botanically, if not for floral beauty. V. TINUS. Laurustinus. South Europe, 1596.

The long and thick rootstocks of the alpine plant bearing short stems only with a few dense corymbs contrasted markedly with the slender stems, loose foliage and rich groups of flowerheads of the lowland plant.

The reddish stems of this rather tall-growing species are of interest, and render the plant distinct. Leaves ovate, acute, and serrated, and tomentose beneath. Flowers in spreading corymbs of a very beautiful rose colour, and at their best from the middle of May till the middle of June. S. bella alba has white flowers. S. BLUMEI. Blume's Spiraea. Japan.

One of the giants is purple eupatorium, which sometimes carries its corymbs of flesh-colored flowers ten and twelve feet high. A pretty and curious little weed, sometimes found growing in the edge of the garden, is the clasping specularia, a relative of the harebell and of the European Venus's looking-glass. Its leaves are shell-shaped, and clasp the stalk so as to form little shallow cups.

The sweet-scented Virginian Raspberry forms a rather dense, upright growing bush, fully 4 feet high, with large broadly five-lobed and toothed leaves, that are more or less viscid, sweet-scented, and deciduous. The leaves are placed on long, hairy, viscid foot-stalks. Flowers in terminal corymbs, large and nearly circular, purplish-red in colour, and composed of five broad, round petals.