46 



DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



many of them fetchinsr rather high prices. For- 1 

 tuners Three Years in China. 



Begonia fuchsioides. Fuchsia-like Becoiiia, 

 or Elephant's Ear. Stove Perennial. (Begoniads.) 

 Ocana Mountains of New Grenada. — A most love- 

 ly new Begonia, deteeted l)y Mr. Purdie, during 

 his mission" for the Royal Gardens at Kew. It is 

 easily propagated by euttings, grows rapidly, bears 

 small but copious foliage, and is a plant to which 

 he particularly requested our attention, on account 

 of the copious, elegant, drooping red flowers, at 

 tirst sight resembling tiiose of a Fuschsia ; and be- 

 cause ft is much eaten to allay thirst by the Arrie- 

 ros (mule drivers) of the country. He also ob- 

 serves that the globular buds, (meaning, probably, 

 the buds of the fertile blossoms, which are globular) 

 contain a fluid, which, together with the acid of 

 the flowers, proves highly grateful in the dry sea- 

 son and where tliere are no rivers. It has bloomed 

 durinir the autumn months with Mr. Veitch of Ex- 

 eter "who has one plant three feet high, loaded 

 with flowers. Our plants are now beginning to 

 flower. It is singular that, as far as they have yet 

 blossomed, the plants have proved only male-flow- 

 ered, except the tall one of Mr. Veitch, which hns 

 one cluster of female flowers at the top. Botani- 

 cal Magazine. 



Fuel in Paris. — It is quite cold to-day, and I 

 have been obliged to have a Are ; I therefore pur- 

 chased two francs' worth of wood. There is a 

 marchand de bois across the street, who occupies 

 not a spacious wood-yard, as you would probably 

 imasrine, but a small shop, and that shop, small as 

 it is^is large enough to stow many thousand francs' 



wortli of this precious article. They would no 

 more think of exposing it to the depredations of tlie 

 needy and unprincipled, in tlie open air, than a sil- 

 ver-smith with us, would ])il<! up his wares in a 

 yard ; why, while the marchand de bois was look- 

 ing away, some scoundrel might fill his pockets 

 and be off. For two frnncs I got twenty-three sticks, 

 sliort sticks, ratlicr small ; and for two sous each I 

 purchased two bundles of kindlings in fairots. It is, 

 I believe, about a franc and a half for fifty pounds. 

 When a fellow was going to buy a foot, they hardly 

 thousht him sane, and inquired if he would pay 

 on the sjjot. The shop of the marchand de bois is 

 decorated outside with paintings of piles of wood 

 in perspective, presenting a perfect El Dorado, 

 like the piles of gold in the broker's windows, only 

 less real ; they sell also charbon de terre and char- 

 bon de bois. They also sell (tt will make you 

 lau2'h to hear) small pine cones, four for a sous, 

 for fuel. In the winter they burn English coal, 

 which is dear too, mixed with wood. The forests 

 in France are mostly consumed, and great com- 

 plaints are made of the high duty on English coal. 



astonished his barber by telling liim he had 



burnt up while camping out many thousand francs' 

 worth of wood in one night ! Their manner of saw- 

 ing wood expresses the value they put upon it ; 

 instead of subjecting it to the rude contact of a 

 saw-horse, they hold it carefully in their hands, and 

 rub it up and down the saw ; The sawdust is of 

 course carefully preserved ; tliey would as soon 

 waste gold dust. A good deal mi^'ht be said on 

 the influence which the scarcity of fuel has had on 

 the French character, driving them to the cafe 

 and the sjiectacle, from the fireside. — Paris Cor res. 

 i Salem Gazette. 



DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



Paulownia Imperialis. — There are few things 

 in the vegetable worhl that more eflectually illus- 

 trates the skill of the hand which formed them, than 

 the flower buds of this tree. Growing through the 

 suumier with a rajiidiiy and luxuriance unsurpass- 

 ed by any hardy tree known in this climate, it be- 

 gins to consolidate its juices as the winter ap- 

 proaches, and to form of its own resources, a beauti- 

 ful little dwelling for its infant flower, and the germ 

 destined to perpetuate its existence. The seeds 

 being fairly established, each in its little cell, and 

 surmounted by the steeple-like style, tlie four sta- 

 mens are delicately folded about them, and covered 

 with a texture like fretted mother of pearl. The 

 whole is then surrounded by a delicate moss cover- 

 ed tissue, resembling very much the beautiful Irost 

 work that covers the leaves of the ice plant, and 

 the interior surface of which is like finely polished 

 silver. Th'.s is then covered by a thick cellular tis- 

 sue, lined with this same delicate frost work, and 

 protected on the outside by a tough rind, resembling 

 through a powerful microscope, the external cover- 



ing of the cocoanut, and admirablv adapted to pro- 

 tect the bud from cold and from every external in- 

 jury. The bud is rather oval, about three-eighths 

 of an inch in diameter one way and five-eighths the 

 other. When the spring opens, the bud begins to 

 swell, the outer covering bursts at the apex ; the 

 mossy lining of the outside, and the mossy covering 

 of the inside, separate and present at this stage a, 

 beautiful frost-like appearance. The delicate co- 

 vering of the inside now begins to slide apart the 

 four layers which crown its apex, and the flower 

 opens its blue point to the light of day. The warm 

 spring sun now soon expands the entire flower and 

 exhibits the colour of a light purple, slightly shaded 

 with blue. In form it is somewhat like a Foxglove, 

 between the Gloxinia and the Bignonia radicansj 

 and the specimen before me measures two and five- 

 eighths inches from the base of the calyx to the top 

 of the petals. This calyx is us thick as heavy buck- 

 skin, and, as before remarked, is most admirably 

 adapted to protect the flower-bud from intense cold. 

 The flowers are produced in racemes at the extre- 



