florets are so closely set, that the whole united appear like 

 one large double flower the tout ensemble is both unique 

 and magnificent. This plant has been generally sold in Eu- 

 rope at the price of ten guineas, and the author received one, 

 a* a favour^ at about half that sum. I am rot aware that 

 any other person in our country has gone to the expense of 

 importing this rare plant; but Mr Hobbs, the superintendent 

 of the Green-house department at the author's establishment, 

 has already reared one fine plant from the original one, and 

 will doubtless soon have sevetal others in successful progress, 

 Cheirostemon filatunoides^ or Mexican Hand Flower 

 Tree. Tne flowers of this shrub, or which in Mexico forms 

 a small tree, are of such peculiar structure, and have been 

 so long objects of great notoriety, that they have bern sent 

 throughout the world preserved in bottles of alcohol, and 

 have been deemed among the most curious appendages to 

 scientific collections, museums, Sec. A tale was formerly 

 told as an accompaniment to the flower, that but one tree 

 existed, &c. ; but since the intercourse with the cidevant 

 Spanish provinces has been opened, the fiction has vanished, 

 and this most interesting plant has been transported to vari- 

 ous foreign climes. Like most other Mexican plants, it will 

 flourish in a Green-house or warm parlour with but mo- 

 derate attention. 



Phormium tenax^or Nciv-Zraland Flax. This plant, of 

 but modern introduction, seems likely at no distant period to 

 form an article of commercial importance. It thrives in any 

 rich light soil, and is readily increased by offsets from the 

 root. Already it has been found to mature its seeds at.Cher-* 

 bourg and Toulon, in France, and hence it is conjectured 

 that it may be cultivated with success in a great part of that 

 country. It would without doubt succeed by open culture 

 in South-Carolina, and localities further south, and perhaps, 

 in North-Car, liua and Virginia ; and would constitute a very 

 important substitute for hemp. 



Fuchsia. Of this genus ten varieties are now cultivated 

 in our Green-houses, all of which are natives of Mexico and 

 South-America but one, and that is from New-Zealand. The 

 F. coccinea, or Scarlet Floivering^ often called the Eardrop, 

 is so old an inhabitant of our rooms and Green-houses, that 

 it is familiar to almost every one and the same general cha- 

 racters, as to formation of the flowers, pervade all the other 

 species in a greater or less degree. The most beautiful in 

 point of foliage is the arborescens^ which attains to a larger 



