366 Dr Balfour's Description of Rare Plants. 



in ; may commingle their efforts and their gifts, and carry out upon 

 a scale of grandeur hitherto unknown, the life-giving principle of 

 modern times — the principle of free association. 



The internal contrasts which assisted the development of the 

 nations in their infancy and youth, exist not here ; they would be 

 useless. They are reduced to two general conti'asts, which will pre- 

 serve theii" importance ; the coast and intei'ior on one side, and the 

 North and the South on the other. The last will be further softened 

 down, when slavery, that fatal heritage of another age, which the 

 Union still drags after it, as the convict drags his chain and ball, 

 shall have disappeared from this free soil, freed in the name of 

 liberty and Christian brotherhood, as it has disappeared from the 

 fundamental principles of its law. 



Thus America also seems invited, by its physical nature, and by 

 its position, to play a part in the history of humanity, very'different 

 indeed from that of Asia and Europe, but not less glorious, not less 

 useful to all mankind. — {Arnold Guyot's Physical Geography, 

 p. 249.* 



On the Aconitum ferox, Wall., ivhich has recently floivered 

 in the Garden of the Edinburgh Horticultural Society. By 

 J. H. Balfouk, M.D., F.L.S., Professor of Botany in the 

 University of Edinburgh. (With a Plate.) Communicated 

 by the Author. 



Aconitum ferox, Wallich apud Seringa Mus. Helvet. i., 

 p. 160, t. 15, f. 43, 44 ; Plant. Asiat. Ear. vol. i., p. 35, 

 t. 41. De Candolle Prod, i., 64; Boyle Flor. Himal., 

 p. 46, 47 ; A. virosura, Don. Prod. Flor. Nepal., p. 196. 



Nat. Ord. Ranunculacete, Sub.-Ord. Helleboreae, Class 

 Polyandria, Ord. Tri-Pentagynia. 



Generic Chaeactek. — Calyx coloratus, pentaphyllus, foliolis aes- 

 tivatione imbricatis, valde injequalibus, postico [galea) maximo, 

 concavo, cassidaeformi, duobus lateralibus {alls) orbiculatis, duobus 

 anticis oblongis. Corollce petala quinque vel interdum pauciora, 

 tria antica minima, unguiformia, ssepius in stamina conversa, duo 

 postica (cuculli) sub galea incumbentia, longe unguiculata, basi 

 cucullata, cucuUo superne calloso, incurve, basi in limbum ob- 

 longum emarginatum producto. Stamina plurima, hypogyna. 



* We trust that ere long a British edition of this reniai-lcable volume, with 

 illustrative sections and maps, will be addftd to our literature. — JEditor. 



