HARDY PERENNIALS. 47 



most splendid of hardy exotics. A few of the finest species require winter protec- 

 tion, but a large proportion may be preserved with only a covering of leaves, and 

 some of them are quite hardy. We intend next month figuring one of the best 

 species, and therefore defer till then any enumeration of the most suitable varieties 

 for out-door cultivation. 



Next on our list stands the Primulacea, which, if the plants comprising it are less 

 snowy than those of the preceding order, are not the less remarkable for their 

 extreme neatness of habit, and their interesting early flowers. We allude not only 

 to the Primulas, the type of the order, but also to the Androsaces, Soldanellas, and 

 other alpine genera, ' than which nothing can be more lovely ; their little modest 

 blossoms, in their native Alps, sometimes rivalling the whiteness of the surrounding 

 snow, sometimes emulating the intense blue of the empyrean, as if one had borrowed 

 its hues from heaven, and the other from the spotless mantle of the earth." Pour 

 other genera, in addition to those we have named, contain plants meriting cultivation, 

 viz., Cyclamen, Lysimachia, Dodecatheon, and Cortusa. 



Another order almost exclusively alpine, is the Gentianacem, including the numerous 

 species of Gentian, with their deep blue or pale yellow flowers ; the pretty Erythreas, 

 and the Spigelias, of which one species, marilandica, is an interesting hardy plant. 



The Phlox tribe is rapidly becoming a favourite, both with the public and profes- 

 sional florists. Numerous hybrids are now produced every season, some of which 

 are among the finest of herbaceous perennials ; and the same may be said of many 

 of the older species from North America. We have not hitherto, in the course of the 

 present paper, ventured to point out any of the structural peculiarities of plants we 

 have named, but we are tempted to occupy a line with a reference to the singular 

 position of the stamens in the Phlox family. In all the species with which we 

 have any acquaintance, these are inserted in the tube of the corolla, not in one 

 plane, as is the case with most other plants, but at different distances from its. 

 mouth. We do not know that any explanation of this curious fact has been offered ; 

 may it not arise from the narrowness of the tube, which renders such an arrange- 

 ment necessary ? for in most of the species, the throat is of so small a diameter, that 

 were the stamens all at an equal distance from the mouth, the orifice would be 

 entirely closed. At any rate, this much is certain, that this arrangement of the 

 stamens is only seen in those corollas of a form analogous to that of the Phloxes. 



Few gardens are without the so-called Major Convolvulus and the dwarfer 

 Convolvulus tricolor, but how comes it that none of the hardy perennial species of 

 the same genus are seen in cultivation ? There are a considerable number of these, 

 some of a climbing habit, and others of more restricted growth. Sibthorpii, 

 holosericeus, persicus, and sericeus, are the best of the latter class ; and Italicus, 

 liirmtus, Malcolmii, and chinensis of the former. The recently introduced 

 Calyategia /Albescens is interesting, as being the only example of double flowers to be 



