New and Rare Beautiful-leaved Plants ...

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Bell and Daldy, 1870 - Botany - 152 pages

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Page 139 - Breather round our farms, To keep off mildews, and all weather harms: Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds, That come a-swooning over hollow grounds, And wither drearily on barren moors...
Page 139 - O Hearkener to the loud clapping shears, While ever and anon to his shorn peers A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn, When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn Anger our huntsmen: Breather round our farms, To keep off mildews, and all weather harms...
Page 101 - ... betray a shabby insignificance. Thus, too, with the leaves, which have burst asunder suddenly like the fan-palm to make way for the stalk, — their edges in the day-time look ragged and unfinished, as if nature had left them in a hurry for some more pleasing task. On the day after the evening when I had thought it so beautiful, I could not conceive how I had made such a mistake. " ' But the second evening I went out into the garden again. In clearest moonlight stood my flower, more beautiful...
Page 129 - I'll tell you, friend! a wise man and a fool. You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk, Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk, Worth makes the man, and want of it, the fellow; The rest is all but leather or prunella.
Page 101 - ... own flower. I have since had further opportunity of watching the Yuca, and verified these observations, that she will not flower till the full moon, and chooses to hide her beauty from the eye of day.
Page 67 - YET still Alcithoe perverse remains, And Bacchus still, and all his rites, disdains. Too rash, and madly bold, she bids him prove Himself a God, nor owns the son of Jove. Her sisters too unanimous agree, Faithful associates in impiety. The Story of Alcithoe and her Sisters Be this a solemn feast, the priest had said; Be, with each mistress, unemploy'd each maid.
Page 101 - ... the broadest light to manifest its purity. But these transparent leaves of greenish white, which look dull in the day, are melted by the moon to glistening silver. And not only does the plant not appear in its destined hue by day, but the flower, though, as bell-shaped, it cannot quite close again after having once expanded, yet presses its petals together as closely as it can, hangs down its little blossoms, and its tall stalk seems at noon to have reared itself only to betray a shabby insignificance....
Page 117 - CÏPIUPEDIA, with successful guile, Knits her smooth brow, extinguishes her smile ; A spider's bloated paunch and jointed arms Hide her fine form, and mask her blushing charms; In ambush sly the mimic warrior lies, And on quick wing the panting plunderer flies.
Page 101 - The first night I saw it in flower, I was conscious of a peculiar delight, I may even say rapture. Many white flowers are far more beautiful by day ; the lily, for instance, with its firm, thick leaf, needs the broadest light to manifest its purity. But these transparent leaves of greenish white, which look dull in the day, are melted by the moon to glistening silver. And not only does the plant not appear in its destined hue by day, but the flower, though, as...
Page 101 - ... pleasing task. On the day after the evening when I had thought it so beautiful, I could not conceive how I had made such a mistake. " ' But the second evening I went out into the garden again. In clearest moonlight stood my flower, more beautiful than ever. The stalk pierced the air like a spear, all the little bells had erected themselves around it in most graceful array, with petals more transparent than silver, and of softer light than the diamond. Their edges were clearly but not sharply...

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