72 GARDEN FLOWERS. 



The geraniums, or, as they are more properly 

 called, the pelargoniums, flower throughout the 

 summer. We have about six hundred distinct 

 species, but most of them are grown either in 

 the greenhoiise or in the in-doors apartment. 

 We received the plant from the Cape of Good 

 Hope, where their handsome flowers are in 

 great profusion ; but new varieties are every 

 year raised from seed in England. The myrtle, 

 too (MyrtKS communis) is opening its fragrant 

 white blossoms. It has several varieties, of 

 which one of the best is the Roman myrtle. 

 This shrub grows wild in the south of France 

 and Spain, in Italy and Greece, and in north- 

 ern Africa ; Avhile in many parts of Syria it is 

 very abundant, as we might infer from the 

 numerous allusions made to it in the sacred 

 writings. All travellers in the east notice 

 its luxuriance. On the hiJls which lie about 

 Jerusalem, forming its natural protection, and 

 which were to suggest to the Hebrew the re- 

 membrance that God Avas thus round about his 

 saints, the white myrtle spray is seen in profu- 

 sion, amid its dark green boughs. Banks of 

 rivers, hill sides, wide plains, and valleys 

 among mountains, are all rendered sweet by its 

 odour. Mrs. Piozzi admired the beauty of this 

 shrub too, near Pisa in Italy, where, she says, 

 the mountains are mountains of marble, and 

 the bushes on them bushes of myrtle, as large 

 as the hawthorn. In Devonshire the myrtle 

 thrives well in the open air : Carringtou thus 

 notices it : — 



