2.  I have already enough spoken of the special manifestation of this character in the orders Contorta and Satyrium, vol. i., p. 91, and the reader will find the parallel aspects of the Draconidae dwelt upon at length in the 86th and 87th paragraphs of the ‘Queen of the Air,’ where also their relation to the labiate group is touched upon.  But I am far more embarrassed by the symbolism of that group which I called ‘Vestales,’ from their especially domestic character and their serviceable purity; but which may be, with more convenience perhaps, simply recognizable as ‘Menthae.’

3.  These are, to our northern countries, what the spice-bearing trees are in the tropics;—­our thyme, lavender, mint, marjoram, and their like, separating themselves not less in the health giving or strengthening character of their scent from the flowers more or less enervating in perfume, as the rose, orange, and violet,—­than in their humble colours and forms from the grace and splendour of those higher tribes; thus allowing themselves to be summed under the general word ‘balm’ more truly than the balsams from which the word is derived.  Giving the most pure and healing powers to the air around them; with a comfort of warmth also, being mostly in dry places, and forming sweet carpets and close turf; but only to be rightly enjoyed in the open air, or indoors when dried; not tempting any one to luxury, nor expressive of any kind of exultation.  Brides do not deck themselves with thyme, nor do we wreathe triumphal arches with mint.

4.  It is most notable, also, farther, that none of these flowers have any extreme beauty in colour.  The blue sage is the only one of vivid hue at all; and we never think of it as for a moment comparable to the violet or bluebell:  thyme is unnoticed beside heath, and many of the other purple varieties of the group are almost dark and sad coloured among the flowers of summer; while, so far from gaining beauty on closer looking, there is scarcely a blossom of them which is not more or less grotesque, even to ugliness, in outline; and so hooded or lappeted as to look at first like some imperfect form of snapdragon for the most part spotted also, wrinkled as if by old age or decay, cleft or torn, as if by violence, and springing out of calices which, in their clustering spines, embody the general roughness of the plant.

5.  I take at once for example, lest the reader should think me unkind or intemperate in my description, a flower very dear and precious to me; and at this time my chief comfort in field walks.  For, now, the reign of all the sweet reginas of the spring is over—­the reign of the silvia and anemone, of viola and veronica; and at last, and this year abdicated under tyrannous storm,[31] the reign of the rose.  And the last foxglove-bells are nearly fallen; and over all my fields and by the brooksides are coming up the burdock, and the coarse and vainly white aster, and the black knapweeds; and there is only one flower left to be loved among the grass,—­the soft, warm-scented Brunelle.