HINA ASTER, or STARWORT. Aster Chinensis. Class 19, Syngenesia. Order: Polygaamia Superflua. Europe and America are indebted to the missionary, Father d’Incarville, for this beautiful various-coloured flower; he having first sent it to the “Jardin du Roi,” at Paris, about 1730. At first it produced only simple flowers of one uniform colour; but, by cultivation, they became so doubled and quadrupled in form, and so varied in colour that it now forms one of the principal ornaments of the parterre, from July to November.
The Chinese, who have favoured us with this plant, make admirable use of it in decorating their gardens. To prepare them, they first raise the plants in pots; then, separating the colours, they dispose them with such infinite art as to produce one splendid and harmonious whole. This effect is often increased by planting them near the side of a lake.
The China-aster is made the emblem of variety; and owes its principal charms to a careful culture of the skilful gardener, who has surrounded its golden disks with every colour of the rainbow. So study produces an endless variety in the refinement of the human mind. Though majestic and brilliant, the China-aster is not the imprudent rival of the rose, but succeeds it, and consoles us for its absence.
VARIETY OF CHARMS.
To fix one spark of beauty’s heavenly ray?
Who doth not feel, until his failing sight
Faints into dimness with its own delight,
His changing cheek, his sinking heart confess
The might—the majesty of loveliness?
Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies.
