2 Mr. Ha worth's new Arrangement 
& 
The species in my section Tarviflorce have small unhandsome 
flowers ; those of A. reticulata, indeed, may be excepted, which are 
pretty, and of a rosy-white colour, spangling to the sun ; not very 
distantly resembling those of Hyacinthus orient alls. The pearly 
and odd-constructed forms, however, so frequently found in this 
division, abundantly compensate for their trifling blossoms. Their 
beauties are equal to others which are always in bloom. 
Bradley, speaking of them in his Dictionarium Botanicum, says, 
" I don't know of any tribe of plants which afford a more plea- 
sing variety than these, for the odd shape of their leaves and 
manner of spotting, and being some of them covered as it were 
with pearls." 
Yet in spite of all these attractive recommendations and enco- 
mia, the whole genus, from a chain of occurrences very difficult 
to account for, has never been properly investigated or cherished, 
either by the botanists or horticulturists of our times ; conse- 
quently, the numerous species which compose it are but little cul- 
tivated, and still less understood. 
The probable reasons of this are, first, a somewhat natural pro- 
pensity in several of the species to vary ; and secondly, a predo- 
minant, but I believe an erroneous, idea, that few of them are 
truly and originally distinct ; but fluctuating and inconstant if 
raised from seed. 
This belief, so far as concerns two species, as likely as any 
others to vary from seed, I can practically contradict ; having my- 
self raised A. margaritifera minima and A. Lingua angustifolia from 
seed of my own saving, and found no variation whatever from the 
mother plants. A cause exists, of greater weight, in my opinion, 
than both the above mentioned, which prevents the botanist, 
unless he is likewise an horticulturist, from acquiring a compe- 
tent knowledge of Aloes, and of all other succulent plants : I 
mean 
