16 MISCELLANEA. 



of but one month— he should have said twelve. The consequence of this constant supply of moisture 

 is, an abundant and perennial leanness, exceeding even that of the Amazon. It has also been said 

 that 'the darkest green prevails over the leaves of tropical plants.' I bad gathered so many plants 

 with pale green leaves that this assertion quite startled me, and I had only to lift up my eyes from 

 the paper to see its complete refutation. Before my house were the common tropical weeds- 

 peppers, mallows, nightshades, Cassias, Triumfettas, etc.— all with pale, and many with hoary, 

 foliage. My gaze then extended over the islands in the foaming rivers, the plains and round hills 

 beyond, and the picturesque sierras in the distance, all (save the steepest escarpments of the latter), 

 clad with unbroken forest ; and though various shades of green were distinguishable, I looked in 

 vain for a tint so deep as that of our holly and arbutus. I need scarcely add, that since entering the 

 tropics I have never seen anything comparable to the Stygian green of our yews and Scotch-firs. 

 Again, in looking over my list of plants collected, what will it be supposed are the predominant 

 colours of flowers therein noted ? "White, greenish-white, and green. So very inconspicuous are 

 the flowers of many trees, that sometimes when I ask the Indians the time of flowering of a species 

 which I have just gathered in fruit, I am laughed at fur my ignorance. ' Such a tree,' they will 

 say, ' never puts forth flowers — it bears its fruit at once, na mais.' It is sometimes said, that in the 

 tropics, the loftiest trees are adorned with the largest and handsomest flowers. I have met with 

 some instances of this, but none excelling in beauty the horse-chesnut. 



In conclusion, I have only to express a hope that nothing which I have above said may be 

 construed into speaking ' disrespectfully of the Equator.' It would be easy to fill a volume with 

 the relation of the wonders of nature on the Equator, nor would it be necessary, in order to exalt 

 them, to depreciate the handiwork of the same nat.ire in any other elimo or latitude. —Abridged 

 from a Letter of Mr. E. Spruce in No. 1 305 of the Athenceum. 



FLORISTS' TRICKS. 



A popular contributor to the Cottage Gardener writes: — 'I was among strangers the other day, 

 of whom some were gentleman Florists, but none of them knew me. I bad on my Sunday clothes, 

 and I was a little more spruce than usual, so one of them took me, or rather mistook me, for a 

 half-pay officer, and out of him I got the grandest secret yet out about Pansies ; I think I could 

 now win a prize with them myself. Like all great secrets, it is very simple when you know it. 

 Grow your Tansies as large as it is possible that any one can do in rich free soil, with doses of 

 liquid manure, thinning out flower buds, and stopping the shoots (all this is as necessary for the 

 Pansey as it is for the Grape Vino) ; then, two days before the show, the plants must be allowed to 

 flag for want of water, even the shoots ought to droop, and the flowers be collapsed. This is the 

 moment to pick them for the show ; then is no blood or sap in them, so you can handle them as you 

 would Indian rubber lace ; then, with a pair of compasses, draw a lot of circles on a sheet of paper 

 or pasteboard, and fit the dried flowers with mathematical precision. 'When you have them all 

 exactly in the right way, make dots on the paper where the foot-stalks join the blade of the flower, 

 then a hole for every dot for the stalks to pass through ; now put your pasteboard over a vessel full 

 of water, and the footstalks of the flowers will dip into it, and feed the flowers till they are like to 

 burst ; they are then fit for exhibition, and the prize will be according to your dexterity in drying, 

 ironing, (!) and final damping. — Cottage Gardener for July, 1852. 



Our object in giving the above extract is certainly not that our readers may be enabled to gain a 

 prize for ransies by such a procedure, but rather to express our great regret that so respectable an 

 authority as the writer in question should have lent his countenance to a practice so utterly unworthy 

 (if tlie dignity of Floriculture. Could these lovely creations become vocal, how would they protest 

 against being made the accomplices of such deception. 



