to the
gardener than almost any other, and to which the apple, the pear, the
quince, the cherry, the plum, the peach, the apricot, the victorine, the
almond, the raspberry, the strawberry, and the various brambleberries
belong, together with all the roses and the potentillas,--was introduced
only a short time previous to the appearance of man. And the true
grasses,--a still more important order, which, as the corn-bearing
plants of the agriculturist, feed at the present time at least two
thirds of the human species, and in their humbler varieties form the
staple food of the _grazing_ animals,--scarce appear in the fossil state
at all. They are peculiarly plants of the human period.

Let me instance one other family of which the fossil botanist has not
yet succeeded in finding any trace in even the Tertiary deposits, and
which appears to have been specially created for the gratification of
human sense. Unlike the Rosaceae, it exhibits no rich blow of color, or
tempting show of luscious fruit;--- it does not appeal very directly to
either the sense of taste or of sight: but it is richly odoriferous;
and, though deemed somewhat out of place in the garden for the last
century and more, it enters largely into the composition of some of our
most fashionable perfumes. I refer to the _Labiate_ family,--a family to
which the lavenders, the mints, the thymes, and the hyssops belong, with
basil, rosemary, and marjoram,--all plants of "gray renown," as
Shenstone happily remarks in his description of the herbal of his
"Schoolmistress."

"Herbs too she knew, and well of each could speak,
That in her garden sipped the silvery dew,
Where no vain flower disclosed a gaudy streak,
But herbs for use and physic not a few,
Of gray renown within those borders grew.
The tufted basil, pun-provoking thyme,
And fragrant balm, and sage of sober hue.

"And marjoram sweet in shepherd's posie found,
And lavender, whose spikes of azure bloom
Shall be erewhile in arid bundles bound,
To lurk amid her labors of the loom,
And crown her kerchiefs clean with meikle rare perfume.

"And here trim rosemary, that whilom crowned
The daintiest garden of the proudest peer,
Ere, driven from its envied site, it found
A sacred shelter for its branches here,
Where, edged with gold, its glittering skirts appear,
With horehound gray, and mint of softer green."

All the plants here enumerated belong to the labiate family; which,
though unfash