84. It is impossible to bring into any tenable compass for our present
purpose, even hints of the human influence of the two remaining orders of
Amaryllids and Irids; only note this generally, that while these in
northern countries share with the Primulas the fields of spring, it seems
that in Greece, the primulaceæ are not an extended tribe, while the
crocus, narcissus, and Amaryllis lutea, the "lily of the field" (I
suspect also that the flower whose name we translate "violet" was in
truth an iris) represented to the Greek the first coming of the breath of
life on the renewed herbage; and became in his thoughts the true
embroidery of the saffron robe of Athena. Later in the year, the
dianthus (which, though belonging to an entirely different race of
plants, has yet a strange look of being made out of the grasses by
turning the sheath-membrane at the root of their leaves into a flower)
seems to scatter, in multitudinous families, its crimson stars far and
wide. But the golden lily and crocus, together with the asphodel, retain
always the old Greek's fondest thoughts,--they are only "golden" flowers
that are to burn on the trees, and float on the streams of paradise.

85. I have but one tribe of plants more to note at our country feast--
the savory herbs; but must go a little out of my way to come at them
rightly. All flowers whose petals are fastened together, and most of
those whose petals are loose, are best thought of first as a kind of cup
or tube opening at the mouth. Sometimes the opening is gradual, as in
the convolvulus or campanula; oftener there is a distinct change of
direction between the tube and expanding lip, as in the primrose; or even
a contraction under the lip, making the tube into a narrow-necked phial
or vase, as in the heaths; but the general idea of a tube expanding into
a quatrefoil, cinquefoil, or sixfoil, will embrace most of the forms.

86. Now, it is easy to conceive that flowers of this kind, growing in