THE FORGET-ME-NOT

The dear little FORGET-ME-NOT, (myosotis palustris)[077] with its eye of blue, is said to have derived its touching appellation from a sentimental German story.  Two lovers were walking on the bank of a rapid stream.  The lady beheld the flower growing on a little island, and expressed a passionate desire to possess it.  He gallantly plunged into the stream and obtained the flower, but exhausted by the force of the tide, he had only sufficient strength left as he neared the shore to fling the flower at the fair one’s feet, and exclaim “Forget-me-not!” (Vergiss-mein-nicht.) He was then carried away by the stream, out of her sight for ever.

THE PERIWINKLE.

The PERIWINKLE (vinca or pervinca) has had its due share of poetical distinction.  In France the common people call it the Witch’s violet.  It seems to have suggested to Wordsworth an idea of the consciousness of flowers.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower, The Periwinkle trailed its wreaths, And ’tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes.

Mr. J.L.  Merritt, has some complimentary lines on this flower.

The Periwinkle with its fan-like leaves
All nicely levelled, is a lovely flower
Whose dark wreath, myrtle like, young Flora weaves;
There’s none more rare
Nor aught more meet to deck a fairy’s bower
Or grace her hair.

The little blue Periwinkle is rendered especially interesting to the admirers of the genius of Rousseau by an anecdote that records his emotion on meeting it in one of his botanical excursions.  He had seen it thirty years before in company with Madame de Warens.  On meeting its sweet face again, after so long and eventful an interim, he fell upon his knees, crying out—­Ah! voila de la pervanche! “It struck him,” says Hazlitt, “as the same little identical flower that he remembered so well; and thirty years of sorrow and bitter regret were effaced from his memory.”

The Periwinkle was once supposed to be a cure for many diseases.  Lord Bacon says that in his time people afflicted with cramp wore bands of green periwinkle tied about their limbs.  It had also its supposed moral influences.  According to Culpepper the leaves of the flower if eaten by man and wife together would revive between them a lost affection.

THE BASIL.

    Sweet marjoram, with her like, sweet basil, rare for smell.

Drayton.

The BASIL is a plant rendered poetical by the genius which has handled it.  Boccaccio and Keats have made the name of the sweet basil sound pleasantly in the ears of many people who know nothing of botany.  A species of this plant (known in Europe under the botanical name of Ocymum villosum, and in India as the Toolsee) is held sacred by the Hindus.  Toolsee was a disciple of Vishnu.  Desiring to be his wife she excited the jealousy of Lukshmee by whom she was transformed into the herb named after her.[078]