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Common Daisy.

Page 71.

Bellis perennis.

Common Daisy.

Syngenesia Superflua.

Receptacle naked, conical. Down none. Calyx hemispheri- · cal with equal scales. Seeds inversely egg-shaped. Stalk naked. Root creeping.-Withering.

ON FINDING A DAISY IN FULL BLOOM ON CHRISTMAS DAY.

MONTGOMERY.

THERE is a flower, a little flower,

With silver crest and golden eye,
That welcomes every changing hour,
And weathers every sky.

The prouder beauties of the field

In gay succession shine;

Race after race their honours yield;
They flourish and decline.

But this small flower, to Nature dear,

While moons and stars their courses run,
Wreathes the whole circle of the year,

Companion of the sun.

It smiles upon the lap of May;

To sultry August spreads its charms; Lights pale October on his way; And twines December's arms.

The purple heath and golden broom, On moory mountains catch the gale ; O'er lawns, the lily sheds perfume, The violet in the vale.

But this bold flowret climbs the hill,
Hides in the forest, haunts the glen;
Plays on the margin of the rill;
Peeps round the fox's den.

Within the garden's cultured bound,
It shares the sweet carnation's bed;
And blooms on consecrated ground,
In honour of the dead.

The lambkin crops its crimson gem;

The wild bee murmurs on its breast; The blue fly bends its pensile stem, That decks the skylark's nest.

"Tis Flora's page: in every place,
In every season, fresh and fair,
It opens with perennial grace,
And blossoms every where.

On waste and woodland, rock and plain,
Its humble buds unheeded rise;
The rose has but a summer reign,
The Daisy never dies.

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

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