Roxfield, Bedfordshire.
_Compass Flower._--
"Look at this delicate flower that lifts its head from the meadow--
See how its leaves all point to the north, as true as the magnet;
It is the compass flower, that the finger of God has suspended
Here on its fragile stalk, to direct the traveller's journey
Over the sea-like, pathless, limitless waste of the desert."
_Evangeline_, Part II. IV. line 140., &c.
Where can I find a description of this flower, and what is its scientific
name?
In Abercrombie's _Intellectual Powers_, p. 49. edit. 1846, I find the
following passage:
"The American hunter finds his way in the trackless forests by
attention to minute appearances in the trees, which indicate to him the
points of the compass."
Can any one tell me what these "minute appearances" are?