Page:The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated.djvu/363

229 the keen glittering sickle. Foxgloves, Ferns, Thistles, and the delicate Harebells adorn bank, lane, moorland, and forest, filling the covetous, grasping hands of little wanderers with magnificent nosegays, among which may sometimes be detected the luscious sweetness and pallid tint of a lingering Honeysuckle.

On the glorious hills of our Mountain-land, Wales, I have gathered myriads of minute and exquisite Autumn flowers, among which the sweet wild Thyme is eminently beautiful. How often have I exclaimed in the language of Shakspeare—"I know a bank whereon the wild Thyme grows," where it covers the dark rock with large soft beds of its delicious purple clusters, "lulled in whose bowers" the Fairy Queen might well repose, while its aromatic perfume would greet her with delicate incense.

In the garden we have many gay and popular favourites. The giant Sunflower, so contradictorily alluded to by Poets, sometimes as a parasite, sometimes as a constant lover, turns to the deity-king of heaven its yellow ray-like petals and broad brown disk, where the busy bees are ever creeping about and humming, as they draw the sweets from its multitude of florets. The splendid and infinitely various Dahlia raises its luxuriant form, crowned with modelled flowers of every imaginable shade of colour. The double Dahlias have, in my opinion, too entirely superseded their single ancestors, whose deep-gold, powdery centres were so very beautiful. I cannot partake the great admiration bestowed by fancy-florists upon all double monstrocities.