The leaves of the Small Bindweed are placed alternately upon the stem; they are somewhat arrowshaped, with acute lobes, are very variable in size, and grow on slender channelled footstalks. The flowers spring from the axil of the leaves, and are most commonly solitary on a footstalk about as long as the leaf. The capsules rarely arrive at maturity, the plant being chiefly propagated by the spreading of the underground stems.

The climbing habit of this plant, and its abundance in cornfields, where it clothes the straw-stems with its green leaves and gay flowers, connect it with important reflections which arise in the mind when we survey the fields covered with corn, gleaming with a golden hue as it waves beneath the breeze. A few short months ago, these fields presented to our view only the dark and naked earth; but as time flowed on in its ceaseless course, the green blade gladdened our eyes with its rich promise, the fertilizing rain descended from the clouds, and the sun shed his genial warmth upon the bosom of the earth, so that the blade grew and put forth its bloom, the flowers fructified and the life-sustaining grains were formed, and then the sun with his summer beams ripened them, and now we, with thankfulness to Him Who made the universe, and Who gives "us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness," behold these fruits gathered in, with a conscious sense that it is of His free gift alone that His creatures possess both food and raiment. How vain were all the efforts of mankind to rear corn, the staple of our food, to grow the grateful flax, or breed the fleece-bestowing flock, without His blessing on their labours!

The beauties of our flower have not often been celebrated by poets: we have culled the following lines from the "Bouquet des Souvenirs," suggested by the reaped fields:

The fields so lately clothed are bare,
The reaper's arm hath toiled there;
Loud shouts "throughout the welkin ring,"
As glad the last rich load they bring ;
Homeward the sunburnt labourers come,
With joyous cry of "Harvest Home!"

Trace we the path ?-It first was trod
When late the plough upturned the sod;
Then swerving footsteps needs must stray,
Making an ever winding way,

And, failing in a line direct,
Beauty unconsciously effect.-

See here, although the field is bare,
Fringing the path or scattered near,
A few neglected ears we find,
Round which Convolvulus hath twined;
Though scorned by all the world besides,
Still fond and true she with them bides.

The Small Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis) is of the Linnæan class Pentandria, and order Monogynia, and of the Natural order Convolvulaceæ.

There are two other indigenous species, of which the Great Bindweed (C. Sepium) is nearly as common as the preceding, but its place of growth is altogether different. It is very elegant and graceful in its habit, twining about the branches of trees in hedges, from which its large white flowers stand out very conspicuously, at the same season as the Small Bindweed. The flowers are said to be sometimes of a rose colour,

but we have not met with any. Agnes Strickland has penned a few lines which apply very appropriately to these two flowers:

How fair her pendent wreath

O'er brush and brake is twining;
While meekly there beneath,
Midst fern and blossomed heath,
Her lovelier sister's shining,
Tinged with such gentle hues as streak
A slumbering infant's glowing cheek.

The other is the Sea Bindweed (C. Soldanella), which is pretty common on our sandy sea-shores. The flowers, which bloom from June to August, are very short-lived, but the plant bears a continual succession of them throughout their season of flowering.

Campanula ; L.

THE HAREBELL.

La Campanule; Fr. Die glockenblume; Ger. Klokjes; Dutch. Campanella; Ital. Campanula; Sp. Kolokoltschik; Russ.

Mark you the delicate bells of that flower,

Pendent so freely on sensitive threads;

You'd fancy they're used to tell forth the hour,
When fairies may quit their moss-covered beds.

Hark you!-'tis midnight-now list to the peals
Which zephyrs chime forth from purple-hued bells;
And, see you! the moon with pale beams reveals
Revels of fairies in grassy green dells.

How richly they sound, so fine is the woof
Of which nature forms the pretty Harebell ;
The music they send forth, rings through the roof,
Which arches the grot where fairies do dwell.

List! they have ceased!-the revels are over,
Hie we to the glade to pluck the blue bell,
Beauties so rich we soon shall discover,

And gather the flower we've ever loved well.—MS.

How well fitted are all the productions of nature to call forth our admiration! If one lacks aught of beauty, it abounds in utility; if it seems to be deficient in utility, it is clothed with beauty! This is especially true of wild flowers. Many plants, whose roots or leaves possess some useful medicinal properties, once of great value, but now superseded by other agents, procured by the researches of science, have no visible beauty to command our regard; while many others, which the farmer regards as weeds, and would gladly banish from his fields for ever, and which ap

parently possess no intrinsic worth, demand and receive our utmost admiration. Some, on account. of the elegance of the plant generally; others, from the beauty, the singularity, or the rich colour of their flowers; and others even for their rarity. We are delighted with the snowdrop, because it flowers in a dreary season; we rejoice to see the violet and the primrose, both as being beautiful in themselves, and as the earliest flowers of the advancing year; we admire the trailing branches, the very elegantly-formed leaves, and the pretty yellow flower of the cinquefoil; and the climbing, twining stem of the bindweed, garnished with its pale pink flowers; and yet, when we come to look upon the pretty Harebell, often springing up from a bank covered with potentilla, we have plenty of the feeling of admiration left to feast our eyes upon its delicate beauty. It has pretty little root leaves, nearly round, and heart-shaped at the base, whence it is named the round-leaved Bell-flower; but the leaves on the lower part of the stem are lanceolate, and those of the upper part linear. The stem, which is perfectly upright and very slender, is about a foot or eighteen inches long, and at its extremity the flowers grow in a terminal panicle, hanging pendent by very slight thread-like footstalks. It is impossible to convey in words an accurate idea of the elegant shape of the flowers; and the richness of the azure with which they are dyed is indescribable. Our artist has drawn the flower with great correctness, and imitated its colour with remarkable success, but no art can communicate an adequate notion of the delicacy of the tint, the grace of the entire plant, the lightness of the flower, and the elegance of its form. The living plant must be seen,