Flora's Lexicon/Cardinal Flower

by Catharine Harbeson Waterman

ARDINAL’S FLOWER. Lobelia Cardinalis, Class 5, Pentandria. Order: Monogynia. This elegant plant is decorated with bright scarlet flowers. It is indigenous in our country, growing on the borders of rivers and streamlets. It is a flower of singular elegance and richness.

DISTINCTION.

For places in the court, are but like bedsIn the hospital; where this man’s head liesAt that man’s foot, and so lower and lower.

Webster.

If on the sudden he begins to rise;No man that lives can count his enemies.

Middleton.

All prefermentThat springs from sin and lust shoots up quickly;As gard’ner’s crops do in the rott’nest grounds;So is all means raised from base prostitution,Even like a salad growing upon a dunghill.

Middleton.

What throngs of great impediments besiegeThe virtuous mind? so thick, they jostleOne another as they come. Hath vice aCharter got, that none must rise, but such, whoOf the devil’s faction are? the way toHonour is not evermore the way toHell: a virtuous man may climb. Let theFlatterer sell his lies elsewhere, it isUnthrifty merchandise to change my goldFor breath.

Davenant