stones, or roof, as close as it can sit. But I think this an ungraceful
notion of its behaviour; and as its blossoms are, of all flowers, the most
sharply and distinctly star-shaped, I shall call it 'Stella' (providing
otherwise, in due time, for the poor little chickweeds;) and the common
stonecrop will therefore be 'Stella domestica.'

The second tribe, (at present saxifraga,) growing for the most part wild on
rocks, may, I trust, even in Protestant botany, be named Francesca, after
St. Francis of Assisi; not only for its modesty, and love of mountain
ground, and poverty of colour and leaf; but also because the chief element
of its decoration, seen close, will be found in its spots, or stigmata.

In the nomenclature of the third order I make no change.

24. Now all this group of golden-blossoming plants agree in general
character of having a rich cluster of radical leaves, from which they throw
up a single stalk bearing clustered blossoms; for which stalk, when
entirely leafless, I intend always to keep the term 'virgula,' the {147}
'little rod'--not painfully caring about it, but being able thus to define
it with precision, if required. And these are connected with the stems of
branching shrubs through infinite varieties of structure, in which the
first steps of transition are made by carrying the cluster of radical
leaves up, and letting them expire gradually from the rising stem: the
changes of form in the leaves as they rise higher from the ground being one
of quite the most interesting specific studies in every plant. I had set
myself once, in a bye-study for foreground drawing, hard on this point; and
began, with Mr. Burgess, a complete analysis of the foliation of annual
stems; of which Line-studies II., III., and IV., are examples; reduced
copies, all, from the beautiful Flora Danica. But after giving two whole
lovely long summer days, under the Giesbach, to the blue scabious,
('Devil's bit,') and getting in that time, only half-way up it, I gave in;
and must leave the work to happier and younger souls.

25. For these flowering stems, therefore, possessing nearly all the complex
organization of a tree, but not its permanence, we will keep the word
'virga;' and 'virgula' for those that have no leaves. I believe, when we
come to the study of leaf-order, it will be best to begin with these annual
virgae, in which the leaf has nothing to do with preparation for a next
year's branch. And now the remaining terms co