weather. Cuttings from this species, planted in summer, placed in the shade, and regularly watered, will take root in five or six weeks in the open air.

The Trailing Heliotrope, from the Cape of Good Hope, and the European, are hardy annual plants, which may be sown in September or October, kept in the open air, watered as the others, and will flower in July and August.

The Heliotrope is said to owe its existence to the death of Clytie, who pined away in hopeless love of the god Apollo.

"She with distracted passion pines away,
Detesteth company; all night, all day,
Disrobed, with her ruffled hair unbound,
And wet with humour, sits upon the ground;
For nine long days all sustenance forbears;
Her hunger cloy'd with dew, her thirst with tears:
Nor rose; but rivets on the god her eyes,
And ever turns her face to him that flies.

At length, to earth her stupid body cleaves:
Her wan complexion turns to bloodless leaves,
Yet streak'd with red: her perish'd limbs beget
A flower, resembling the pale violet ;

Which, with the sun, though rooted fast, doth move;
And being changed, changeth not her love.”

SANDYS'S OVID, Fourth Book.

The name Heliotrope is sometimes given to the sunflower, commonly so called: (Helianthus) as in the following passage:

"There lovely flowers profuse,

Appear as vivid stars ;

The snowy rose is there

A silver moon, the heliotrope a sun.”

ANDREINI'S ADAM.

HELMET-FLOWER.

SCUTELLARIA.

LABIATE.

DIDYNAMIA GYMNOSPERMIA.

The common European species is also called the hooded willow herb; skull cap.-French, la toque [skull cap]; centaurée bleue [blue centaury]; tertianaire, from its use in curing the tertian ague.-Italian, terzanaria; scodellata [skull cap].

THE kinds of Helmet-flower most generally cultivated in our gardens, are the Oriental, with yellow flowers, blowing in May, June, and July; the Alpine, which has a violet-coloured flower with a white lip-a native of CochinChina, and of several parts of Europe; the Florentine, with large violet-coloured flowers; and the Tall Helmetflower, with purple blossoms, from the Levant. They may be sown in autumn, in separate pots, in a dry, poor earth ; must be sparingly watered, and stand in the open air. They will not last many years: the Oriental kind will not bear transplanting.

MELANTHACEE.

HELONIAS.

HEXANDRIA TRIGYNIA.

THE Helonias is a native of North America. The flowers are handsome; their colour white or red, according to the species: they may be increased by offsets taken from the roots in autumn. They like a light, fresh soil, and are hardy enough to thrive in the open air. The roots must not be removed oftener than every third year. The earth should be moderately moist.

RANUNCULACEA.

HEPATICA.

ANEMONE HEPATICA.

POLYANDRIA POLYGYNIA.

Called formerly the noble liverwort.-French, l'anémone hépatique; l'hépatique des jardins.—Italian, anemone fegatella; herba trinitas.

THE Hepatica is a Swiss species of the anemone: there are many varieties, both single and double, varying in colour, and generally blowing in great profusion in February and March. The flower lies a year within the bud, complete in all its parts. The double flowers last longer than the single, and are much handsomer. They thrive best when exposed only to the morning sun; cold does not injure them. They should be kept moderately moist, and may be increased by parting the roots, which should be done in March, when they are in flower; but not oftener than every third or fourth year. Frequent removal weakens, and sometimes destroys them.

A remarkable instance is recorded of change of colour in these flowers. Some roots of the Double Blue Hepatica being sent from a garden in Tothill-fields to another at Henley upon Thames, when they came to blossom produced white flowers, owing to the difference of the soil: but it is yet more curious, that being returned to their former station, they resumed their original blue colour.

MALVACEÆ.

HIBISCUS.

MONADELPHIA POLYANDRIA.

French, ketmie.-Italian, ibisco, chetmia.

THE China Rose and the Changeable Rose are species of the Hibiscus; and the former is reckoned the most beautiful of this handsome genus. It is called by the In

dians the Gem of the Sun. With them it grows to a moderately-sized tree; here it is but a shrub. Its native country has not been correctly ascertained, but it is very common both in China and Cochin-China for gardenhedges, as well as in their gardens, and in those of the East Indies. Latrobe speaks of it as making a conspicuous figure in the hedges at the Cape, and growing to the height of sixteen or twenty feet*. The Indians make these beautiful flowers into festoons and garlands on all occasions of festivity, and even in their sepulchral rites. They are also put to a very different and humble use: that of blacking shoes, whence it has been named the Shoe-flower. "It is called in Batavia Kambang Sapato, the Shoe-flower," says Thunberg, "and in fact, the bloom of it yields a very black pigment. On this account it is said to be used for blacking the scabbards of their hangers, as also for blacking shoes†." The women blacken their hair and eye-brows with these roses, which blow nearly all the year round. There is a variety with white flowers.

The Hibiscus Mutabilis, or Changeable Rose, has leaves as large as those of the vine. The flower first opens white, from which it changes to rose-colour, and finally to purple. In the West Indies, all these changes take place in the same day; but here they occupy the space of a week. This plant is a native of the East Indies; from whence the French, who call it la fleur d'une heure, carried it to their settlements in the West Indies. It blows in November.

A third species of Hibiscus is the Venice Mallow, or Hibiscus Trionum, one of the very few species belonging to this beautiful genus which may be raised and preserved without the aid of a stove. It is a native of Italy and

* Latrobe's South Africa, p. 49.
+ Thunberg's Travels, Vol. II. p. 291

Austria, bears a purple and yellow flower, and has long been known in our English gardens by the name of the Venice Mallow, Mallow of an Hour, Bladder Ketmia, Bladder Hibiscus, or Good Night at Noon. "But," says Gerarde," it should rather be Good Night at Nine; for this beautiful flower opens at eight in the morning, and, having received the beams of the sun, closes again at nine.”

"Ovid," continues he, "in speaking of the Adonis flower, is thought to describe the Anemone, or Windflower, which we rather deem to be this quick-fading Mallow; for it is evident that Adonis flower, and all under the title of Wind-flower, last more than one day; but this is so frail that it scarcely lasts an hour. Bion of Smyrna, an ancient poet, says in his epitaph on Adonis, that the Wind-flower sprung from Venus's tears while she was weeping for Adonis; but, doubtless, the plant was mistaken by the poet, considering the fragility of the flower and the matter whereof it sprung, that is a woman's tears, which last not long; as this flower, flos hora, or Flower of an Hour."

Notwithstanding the facetiousness of the good Gerarde, however, the Venice Mallow must be contented with her own natural parentage, for that of the Anemone is too well established to allow of her being superseded.

Miller says, "that in fine sunny weather this flower will remain open the whole day; that in wet weather it will not open at all; but, when very fine, has been observed not to close until half-past six in the evening."

The first two plants must have very little water in winter, and not a great deal in summer: they are tender, and will always be better in the house, placed near an open window in the summer, and kept pretty warm in the winter. An inhabited room will answer very well for them.

The Venice Mallow, or Bladder Ketmia, being more