The Oriental Clematis is a native of the Levant; it has flowers of a greenish yellow colour, which are in blossom from July till October.

The Upright Virgin's Bower, or Clematis Flammula, (in French, la flammule; clematite odorante: Italian, flammula :) grows naturally in many parts of Europe. The flowers are white, and continue in blossom from June till September. This is an acrid, corrosive plant, and inflames the skin, whence it has been named Flammula.

"If one leaf," says Miller, "be cropped in a hot day in the summer season, and bruised, and presently put to the nostrils, it will cause a smell and pain like a flame."

The Hungarian Clematis has blue flowers, which are in blossom from June to August. This and the last mentioned species have annual stems.

All the kinds here enumerated, which are the handsomest, will live in the open air all the year. They should, in general, be watered about three times in a week, but in very hot and dry weather every evening.

There are some few species of the Clematis which require artificial heat, but they are by far the least handsome. The two last mentioned kinds may be increased by parting the roots, which should be done either in October or February. The roots may be cut through their crowns with a sharp knife, taking care to preserve some good buds to every offset.

The Clematis is as great a rambler as the Honeysuckle itself:

"o'errun

By vines, and boundless clematis, (between
Whose wilderness of leaves, white roses peep'd)
And honeysuckle, which, with trailing boughs,
Dropp'd o'er a sward, grateful as ever sprung
By sprinkling fountains."

BARRY CORNWALL.

Mr. Keats makes mention of the Clematis in a passage, of which, as it relates entirely to flowers, it may, perhaps, be allowable to quote the whole. He describes a youth sleeping in a bower walled with myrtle :

"Above his head

Four lily-stalks did their white honours wed,
To make a coronal, and round him grew
All tendrils green, of every bloom and hue;
Together intertwined, and trammel'd fresh:
The vine of glossy sprout; the ivy-mesh,
Shading its Ethiop berries; and woodbine
Of velvet leaves, and bugle blooms divine;
Convolvulus in streaked vases flush;

The creeper, mellowing for an autumn blush;
And virgin's bower, trailing airily,

With others of the sisterhood."

ENDYMION, p. 72.

This poet appears to allude to the Clematis and the Honeysuckle in the following passage:

"The sweet-lipped ladies have already greeted

All the green leaves that round the window clamber
To show their purple stars, and bells of amber."

KEATS'S POEMS, p. 26.

Wherever a lattice is mentioned, the Clematis is expected

to run over it:

"In all the calmness of a cloudless eve,

How gently dies a long, long summer's day,
O'er yon broad wood, as loth to take its leave,
It sheds at parting its most lovely ray,
And golden lights o'er all the landscape play,
And languid zephyrs waft their rich perfume,
Where the wide lattice gives them open way,
And breathe a freshness round the twilight room,
From jasmine, clematis, and yellow-blossomed broom."
From an unpublished Collection by
different Authors.

ERICINEÆ.

CLETHRA.

DECANDRIA MONOGYNIA.

THE Clethra Arborea, or Tree Clethra, will require shelter from the winter cold, in our climate: it should be housed about the middle or end of September, according as the weather is more or less mild; and, during this season, should be watered about twice a week; in the summer, when the weather is dry, it should be watered once in a day, or in two days, in proportion to the heat of the sun, or the plant's exposure to it. The earth should not be suffered to become parched. It is a native of Madeira.

COLCHICACEE.

COLCHICUM.

HEXANDRIA MONOGYNIA.

So called from Colchis, a city of Arminia, where this plant is supposed to have been very common. The English name of meadow saffron is from its common place of growth, and its resemblance to the crocus, or saffron flower.

THE Autumnal Colchicum, or Common Meadow Saffron, is named in French, tue chien, mort au chien, both signifying dog poison; in the villages, bovet; in Italian, colchico; and has many varieties: the Yellow-flowered or Crocus Colchicum, the Purple, Red, White, Rosy, Rosy-variegated, Purple-variegated, and Double. The flowers appear in autumn, the leaves not till the following March; for which reason the country people call them Naked Ladies, an appellation bestowed upon many flowers which blow before they are in leaf. The leaves are of a fine glowing green, and very luxuriant.

There are several other species, requiring the same treatment as this. The roots are bulbous, and a new one is formed every year, as the old one decays. The leaves

begin to wither in May, soon after which the roots should be taken out of the earth, put in a shady place to dry, wiped clean from earth, decayed fibres, &c. and put into a dry place, safe from insects, &c. until the beginning of August, when they should be planted again, about three or four inches deep, in a sandy soil.

The pot should be about six inches wide and nine deep. Water should be given in small quantities, and if the pot be placed in the shade, exposed to the dews and light summer showers, it need not be watered at all, until after the plant has begun to shoot above the earth.

It injures the root of the Colchicum to pluck the flower when newly blown, as it deprives the new root which is forming of a part of its nourishment. It will likewise be improper to delay planting the roots after the beginning of August, as they will otherwise vegetate, and produce their flowers without planting, which will greatly weaken them.

RANUNCULACEÆ.

COLUMBINE.

AQUILEGIA.

POLYANDRIA PENTAGYNIA.

Cock's-foot or culverwort.-The botanical name for this plant, Aquilegia or Aquilina, is derived from aquila, an eagle, from a notion that the nectaries resemble an eagle's claws. Our English name, columbine, is derived from the resemblance which, in a wild state, these parts bear, both in form and colour, to the head and neck of a dove, for which the Latin name is Columba.-French, aiglantine, ancolie, la colombine, la galantine; gands de notre dame [our lady's gloves]. -Italian, achellea, colombina, perfetto amore [true love], celidona maggiore [great celandine]; at Venice, galeti.

THE Common Columbine is generally, in its wild state, of a blue colour, whence it is named the Blue Starry, but in the neighbourhood of Berne, and in Norfolk, it has been found both with red and white flowers. It is common in

woods, hedges, and bushes, in most parts of Europe. They are greatly changed by culture; become double in various ways; and are of almost all colours; blue, white, red, purple; flesh, ash, and chestnut coloured; blue and white, and red and white. It is a perennial plant, and, with us, flowers in June.

Every part of this plant has been considered as a useful medicine, but Linnæus affirms that, from his own knowledge, children have lost their lives by an over dose of it. That might, however, be the case with some of our best medicines.

The Alpine Columbine has blue flowers tipped with a yellowish green, blowing in May and June. (Biennial). The Canadian Columbine flowers in April: the flowers are yellow on the in, red on the outside. (Perennial).

The Columbines may be increased by parting the roots; but, as they are apt to degenerate, are most commonly raised from seed: these will not grow to flower till the second year; and, as you cannot be sure of the kinds they will produce, it is better to procure the plants from a nursery. They should have a little water, two or three times a week, in dry weather; and may remain in the open air. Gawin Douglas speaks of the Columbine as black, from the deep purple which some of them take:

"Floure-damas, and columbe blak and blew.”

This has been differently expressed in Mr. Fawkes's modernized version; and not happily, for the Columbine drops its head:

"And columbine advanced his purple head."

W. Browne speaks of it in all its colours :

"So did the maidens with their various flowers

Decke up their windowes, and make neat their bowers;

Using such cunning, as they did dispose

The ruddy piny with the lighter rose,