THE CLOVE TREE. THE CLOVE TREE (Caryophyllus aromaticus).—DIGNITY. THE Aromatic Clove Tree is a native of the Moluccas. It was brought into England in 1797, and there are specimens in English gardens. It requires a moist or bark stove for its cultivation. The fruit, which is well known to us from its use as a culinary spice, somewhat resembles a nail, wherefore it is called Clous de Giroflier, by our French neighbours. There are divers preparations from it sold by our druggists, which have the property of mitigating some of the many pains which we have to bear. The inhabitants of the Molucca islands are said to use cloves as marks of distinction. They distinguish their native notabilities by speaking of them respectively as having one, two, three, or four. cloves, just as we speak of the titles of our aristocracy, the recapitulation of which at the funeral of men of renown, occupies considerable time. In the absence of this tree, its flowers and its fruit, from our gardens, the Clove Pink, whose fragrance puts us in mind of the spice, may be well substituted as the emblem of Dignity. THE COLUMBINE (Aquilegia vulagris).-FOLLY. THIS curious flower is not rare in a wild state in woods, plantations, and hedgerows. It is cultivated as a borderflower, when it frequently becomes double, and its colour varies from dark purple to crimson, pink, and white. It THE COLUMBINE. summers. often remains single. We brought a few seeds with us from Godalming, sowed them on a bank among common laurels, the Mahonia and other shrubs, and the plant has maintained its original position, uncared for, and has bloomed regularly every succeeding year for the last seventeen It was this year quite white. There is only one solitary stem, with its seed-vessels now ripening, but it puts us in mind of its parent-plant, and of the beautiful spot in which that parent flourished. The plant seems to have been called Columbine from the resemblance of the flowers to doves, and Aquilegia on account of the inverted spurs being thought to resemble the talons of a bird of prey. The flower, as a whole, reminds some of the cap and bells worn by Columbine in a pantomime, and has been considered a meet emblem of Folly. The Columbine was known to our early poets. Chaucer says "Come forth now with thin eyen Columbine;" and Spenser speaks of two different coloured flowers, "Bring hither the pincke and purple Cullambine;" as a wild flower it has been mentioned as of three different tints, "In pink or purple hues arrayed, ofttimes indeed in white, |