144 STELLAT/E. 



species, and the order no odier plant fit to associate with herba- 

 ceous or alpine plants. It is a pretty, graceful, fragrant plant, 

 and the great name which it commemorates will add a special 

 interest to those qualities in the minds of those who love, 

 botanical science, and revere the memory of the great Swede 

 who was the first to unfold a method of comprehensively 

 studying the vegetable kingdom and gaining an insight into its 

 beauties. The plant is evergreen, with feeble, trailing, wiry 

 stems, clothed with opposite broadly-oval leaves. The flowering 

 branches are short, w^ith a few pairs of leaves, and extend into 

 long slender flower-stalks, each bearing a pair of pretty pink 

 or white bell-shaped flowers appearing in summer. The flowers 

 are fragrant towards evening. It is a native of fir woods in 

 the north-east of Scotland, and has been found also in North- 

 umberland ; but it is more common in alpine woods on the con- 

 tinent of Europe in the north, and in northern Asia and North 

 America. When cultivated it is usually treated as a pot 

 alpine, having been more easily kept in that way than in any 

 other. It is not, however, so difficult to cultivate as is gen- 

 erally supposed. It grows best in rough fibry peat and sand, 

 rambling over mossy stumps and roots and stones in moder- 

 ately-moist partially-shady places. It flowers most freely when 

 fairly exposed to the sun, but is not so easily kept alive and 

 healthy in such circumstances ; and perhaps the best position 

 for it to occupy would be that in which it would enjoy shade 

 from the powerful rays of the mid-day sun only. 



STELLATE. 



This is an herbaceous tribe of the great natural order Rubi- 

 ace(E^ which comprises the splendid genera Ixora^ Gardenia, 

 MuscBiida, and many other stove and greenhouse species, more 

 or less common in our gardens. Unfortunately, however, these 

 shrubs and trees monopolise the beauty of the order to them- 

 selves, and leave to the herbaceous species very little to redeem 

 them from the category of general weediness. There are, how- 

 ever, a few things that may be desirable in the collections of 

 those whose taste and thoughts go deeper with regard to plants 

 than the mere gratification afforded by profuse display of large 

 or gaily- coloured flowers ; and there is one time-honoured 

 plant in Woodruff, which cannot possibly be ignored in a book 

 devoted to old-fashioned hardy garden-flowers. 



