IN commemorating the daisy, we cannot withhold the tribute of the bard of Ayr, in the plaintive little poem which follows, and which is so descriptive of his own peculiar lot, and of the fate which awaited him at no distant period. We must, however, remind our young readers, that the mountain daisy of the poet is still the bellis perennis of the botanist: as there is only one species of daisy known as indigenous in this country; though there are few plants which exhibit greater variety of appearance, with regard to size and colour, according to the nature of the soil in which it grows.

TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY.

On turning one down with the plough.

BURNS.

WEE modest crimson tipped flower,
Thou'st met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stour

Thy slender stem;

To spare thee now is past my power,

Thou bonnie gem.

E

Alas! its to thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie lark, companion meet!
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet!

Wi spreckled breast,

When upward springing, blythe, to greet

The purpling east.

Cauld blew the bitter biting north
Upon thy early, humble birth;

Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth,

Amid the storm,

Scarce rear'd above thy parent earth,

Thy tender form.

The flaunting flowers our gardens yield,
High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield;
But thou, beneath the random beild

O' clod or stane,

Adorns the histie stibble-field,

Unseen, alane.

There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snowy bosom sunward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head

In humble guise ;

But now the share uptears thy bed,

And low thou lies!

Such is the fate of artless maid,

Sweet floweret of the rural shade!

By love's simplicity betray'd,

And guileless trust;

Low i' the dust.

Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid

Such is the fate of simple bard,

On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd!
Unskilful he to note the card

Of prudent lore,

Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,

And whelm him o'er !

Such fate to suffering worth is given,
Who long with wants and woes has striven,

By human pride or cunning driven

To misery's brink,

Till, wrench'd of every stay but heaven,

He ruin'd sink!

E'en thou, who mourn'st the daisy's fate,
That fate is thine-no distant date;

Stern ruin's ploughshare drives elate,

Full on thy bloom,

Till, crush'd beneath the furrow's weight,

Shall be thy doom.

Spartium scoparium.

Common Broom.

Diadelphia Decandria.

Calyx extending downwards, two-lipped. Filaments adhering to the germen. Summit woolly above. Leaves in threes, and solitary. Branches without prickles, angular.