110 BKECK'S NEW BOOK OF FLOWERS. 



What an unlimited field for future improvements opens 

 before us ! We shall never arrive at perfection, but great 

 improvements are yet to be made in many of the new as 

 well as in the old flowers. We do not hold that the ex- 

 citement and pleasure incident to the improvement and 

 cultivation of a flower-garden, will wholly remove the ills 

 and troubles of life ; but it is an occupation that has a ten- 

 dency to remove many disquitudes of the mind, and gives 

 employment for many odd moments, that would otherwise 

 be spent in brooding over some real or imaginary evil. 

 We think Cowper came near the truth when he said: 



" The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns ; 

 The lowering eye, the petulance, the frown, 

 And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort, 

 And mar the fane of beauty, when no cause 

 For such immeasurable woe appears ; 

 These Flora banishes, and gives the fair, 

 Sweet smile and bloom, less transient than her own." 



ABRONIA. 



[Name from the Greek, signifying delicate.] 



Abronia umbellata. A beautiful annual, with long 

 trailing stems, bearing clusters of elegant flowers in dense 

 umbels ; color, delicate lilac, with white centre, highly and 

 deliciously fragrant. 



The seeds are enclosed in a husky covering, and look 

 very unpromising, but they vegetate freely. They may 

 be sown as early in the spring as the ground is ready to 

 receive seed of any kind. It appears to be quite hardy, 

 and easily cultivated, and has the advantage of sowing it- 

 self, *as there will be found in the spring an abundance 

 of young plants on the ground where the plants of the last 

 year were grown. The leaves are light green, of a long 

 oval shape ; the stem rather succulent or fleshy, two or 

 three feet in length, lying prostrate on the ground. It 



