AMERICAN HOME GARDEN. 435 



A large proportion of each class, except the bulbous roots, 

 are natives of our woods, and swamps, and prairies, and mount- 

 ains. I would gladly have introduced more of them, but the 

 limits of my work forbade. A good collection of American 

 trees, plants, and flowers is a desideratum worthy even of na- 

 tional attention and effort. Perhaps the city of New York 

 will do herself the honor of at least a beginning in this direc- 

 tion in the arrangement of her new Central Park. 



In the selections presented the amateur will probably mark 

 omissions which even limited space might not have induced 

 him to make, and certainly he will be able to make large ad- 

 ditions to them of admired plants. 



Previous to the outlay of labor and care on a plant, it is al- 

 most always desirable to be personally acquainted with it. 

 Many are found in collections and catalogues that are of a neg- 

 ative character, and unworthy of a place in the private flower- 

 garden, however they may interest the botanist or the amateur 

 collector. There are also some of which the name has been 

 their only " ticket of admission," as " Love in a Mist /" and 

 others which, though showy, have some capital defect, as the 

 offensive odor of the Cleome, or Spider-flower. 



In general we cultivate flowers for their beauty, but tastes 

 differ, and we do not always agree in the use of terms, or de- 

 fine them clearly. Beauty may be either simple or composite. 

 There is beauty of form irrespective of other elements, as a 

 curve the rainbow without its colors ; there is beauty of 

 color, as the Tyrian purple, or the azure of a cloudless sky; 

 there is beauty of texture, as in the soft satin ; but a flower, 

 to be beautiful, must combine beauty of form, color, and tex- 

 ture, and, lacking either of them, it ceases to be beautiful as a 

 flower. It may be of beautiful form, as a plaster rose ; or of 

 beautiful color, as a painted cheek ; or of exquisite texture, as 

 the eider down ; or, farther, it may also be curious in its parts, 

 as the Fly-trap ; or admirable in its arrangement, as the 

 Pitcher-plant, but it is not a beautiful flower. If, however, a 

 flower possess these elements of beauty, its beauty may be 

 heightened by the variation and multiplication of one or more 

 of them. The numerous and varied curves in the Cupped 



