THE PETUNIA. 



Petunia plmuit'tcfu. 



ETUNIA PHCENICEA is un- 

 known in the land of the Phoani- 

 cians, being a native of Buenos 

 Ayres, v.'hence it was introduced 

 in 1831. As a matter of course, 

 the spirited maritime nation who 

 built Tyre and Sidon, and who 

 in their day were proud of their 

 King Hiram, friend of Solomon, 

 knew nothing of any kind of 

 petunia, because, to use the lan- 

 guage of a familiar song, the 

 New World " had not then been 

 invented/' And yet in a certain 

 way, by the involutions of lan- 

 guage, this plant takes us round 

 by way of South America to the eastern 

 shores of the Mediterranean, for it is a 

 Phoenician flower, and rightly named, and we are bound 

 to connect it with the intelligent sailor race who brought 

 the ideas and the gold of the east to the southern and 

 western coasts of this country, and took away in exchange 

 the tin of Cornwall, and the report of our wealth of timber 

 and the suitableness of these isles for colonisation. 

 B 



