the active principle it contains appears to become concentrated in different parts of the plant at different seasons of the year. In June and July the root is in perfection; in September the flowers, and the seeds in the following spring. No vegetable poison has been more advantageously applied in medicine than this. Sir Everard Home recommended a tincture of it as efficacious in curing the gout, and it is now even more generally prescribed in rheumatism and gout than in his time. The Hermodactyl of the Greeks is believed to have been a species of Colchicum; it was celebrated as a remedy for gout in ancient times, and its celebrity has been again revived as an ingredient in the French remedy-" Eau Médicinale."

FLOWERING RUSH.

BUTOMUS UMBELLATUS.

THIS is a peculiarly elegant plant, belonging to the family Alismaceæ. It is a rush-like plant, with threecornered, sword-shaped leaves, and umbels of handsome rose-coloured flowers containing nine stamens, a peculiarity by which it is immediately recognized among other wild flowers. The roots are regarded in Russia as a specific in hydrophobia, but experiments made with them in this country have not confirmed the accounts given of their properties by Russian

physicians, and they do not seem to offer any remedy for this terrible and incurable disease. Well may the name of this beautiful plant signify the "Pride of the Water:" it is one of the most ornamental natural adornments of our lakes and rivers, and in marshy districts, where all looks barren and desolate, there may be seen the bright-coloured flowers of the Flowering Rush, by their beauty making "the wilderness to rejoice and blossom as the rose."

Withering quotes a couplet, which is expressive and

true:

"Her rosy umbels rears the Flowering Rush,
While with reflected charms the waters blush."

COMMON ARROW-HEAD.

SAGITTARIA SAGITTIFOLIA.

THIS plant belongs to the family Alismaceæ, but differs from some other genera of that family in having unisexual flowers. The leaves, which are arrow-shaped, rise out of the water on very long stalks, the blades six or eight inches long. The flower-stem is leafless, erect and longer than the leaves-bearing on its upper part several distant whorls of rather large white flowers with a purplish tinge at the base of the petals; but so readily do they fall off, that it is difficult to preserve them. The upper flowers are those which contain the

stamens, the lower ones on shorter stalks contain the pistils. There is but one locality in Scotland recorded where this plant is growing wild; that is somewhere near Paisley. In England and Ireland it is not uncommon, and may be seen in luxuriance on the banks of the Thames, above Putney, during the summer and autumn. The roots of this plant, as well as those of other species, contain an amylaceous matter, which is said to form a nutritious food, and is eaten for that purpose by the Chinese and Kalmuk Tartars.

CUCKOO PINT,-LORDS AND LADIES.

ARUM MACULATUM.

CAN we wonder at the delight of country children with this curious plant, which seems almost to be one of those things we constantly see in nature, designed to illustrate the grotesque as well as the beautiful. Its large handsome spathe, rising up amidst the elegantly-shaped spotted leaves, forms a fitting shelter for the bright-coloured spadil or flower-stalk, the lord or lady, whichever it may be, within its protecting hood. The plant belongs to the family Araceæ, and is the only representative of its family found wild in this country. It would puzzle the beginner in botany to make out the parts of the flower corresponding to