Philosophical Society, this note of Michaux’s interested 
Professor Sargent, and he determined to hunt for the 
arbuste as well as for the Magnolia, little suspecting what 
the former would prove to be. After finding the spot 
where Michaux had camped in December, 1788, and 
following a path that the old traveller must have traversed 
just 100 years before, he discovered the arbuste with 
denticulate leaves, and this to be no other than Shortia 
galacifolia. 
Soon after the re-discovery of Shortia by Mr. Hyam, it 
was widely distributed im America; for, as Professor 
Sargent tells us, ‘‘that enterprising young man reaped a 
_ rich harvest during a year or two by selling plants (and 
it is to be feared by exterminating them) at extravagant 
prices.” The credit of flowering it for the first time in 
England is due to our indefatigable correspondent, Mr. 
Elwes, who received plants of it from Professor Sargent, 
and to whom the Royal Gardens are indebted for that here 
figured, which was exhibited at the Royal Horticultural 
Society’s Exhibition in the spring of this year. Plants of 
it have also flowered at Kew, received from Mr. F. L. 
Temple, of Shady-hill Nurseries, Cambridge, U.S.A. 
As an object of garden culture Shortia will no doubt prove 
a favourite, for it appears to be easily grown and readily 
propagated. A specimen kindly given to me by Mr. Elwes 
early in this year was planted under a clump of Scotch 
firs in a peaty soil near Sunningdale, and has thriven 
luxuriantly, side by side with Linnea borealis and Trien- 
talis ewropea. The flowers have been described as 
rose-coloured, but they are correctly figured as pure 
white in Sprague and Goodale’s “ Wild Flowers of North 
America ;’’ and so they are in the specimens that have 
flowered in England. The leaves turn a deep port-wine 
red in autumn, and nothing can exceed the charm of 
the abundant drooping sat dota age flowers on red 
scapes as they appear amongst the deep green shining 
spring foliage.—J. D. H. 
Fig. 1, Calyx; 2, corolla laid open; 3, staminode; 4, stamen; 5, ovary; 
6, transverse section of do. :--all enlarged. 
