AND THEIR SETTINGS. 261 



following, which are also suitable for the edging of a vase : " Afaii- 

 raiidia bardayana, white or purple flowers ; Vmca elegantissbna 

 aurea, foliage deep green, netted with golden yellow, flowers deep 

 blue ; Cerastium tomentosum, foliage downy white, flowers white ; 

 Convolvulus mauritanicus, flowers light blue, profuse ; Solatium 

 jasjjiinoides varkgatum, foliage variegated, flowers white with yel- 

 low anthers : Geranium peltatutn clegatis, a variety of the ivy- 

 leaved, with rich glossy foliage and mauve-colored flowers : Pani- 

 cmn variegatmn, a procumbent grass from New Caledonia, of 

 graceful habit of growth, with beautiful variegated foliage, striped 

 white, carmine, and green." These are mostly half hardy con- 

 servatory plants, and if the proprietor has no conservatory they 

 must be purchased, when wanted, of the florists, or they may be 

 started by a skillful lady-florist in her own window. Nearly every 

 lady of refined taste longs to have a conservatory of her own. But 

 a building, or even an entire room, built for, and devoted to plants 

 alone, is an expensive luxury. Those who have well-built houses 

 heated by steam, or other good furnaces, may easily have a plant- 

 window in a sunny exposure in which the plants required to bed 

 in open ground the following summer may be reared ; and beautiful 

 well-grown plants may be obtained from the commercial florists to 

 keep the window gay with blossoms and foliage at a price greatly 

 below the cost for which amateurs can raise them in their own con- 

 servatories. These remarks are not designed to discourage the 

 building of private conservatories by those who can afford ihcni — far 

 from it— but rather to suggest to those who cannot afford them, not 

 to be envious of those who can. 



Roses. — We have not previously mentioned the Rose, among 

 flowers anr bedding plants, for the reason that, being the queen 

 of flowers, more than ordinary attention is usually considered due 

 to her. Besides, her royal family are so numerous, so varied and 

 interesting in their characters, and have been the subject of so 

 many compliments from poets, and biographical notices from pens 

 of distinguished horticulturists, that it would be presumption 

 to attempt to describe, in a few brief paragraphs, the peculiar 

 beauties and characteristics of the family; still less of all its 

 thousand members. The mere fact of royalt}^ however, has at- 



