158 Keteleeria Fortunei, 



the mind. And, when this color-revel is at its height, here in the West, 

 there always mysteriously appears in the midst of the violets a cluster of 

 the golden-yellow Lithospenninn canesccns, the hoary puccoon, as if to give 

 an air of reality to the scene. 



But I have said enough of this ; said, I fear, much more than my reader 

 will believe. (I know many things in Nature too good to be believed.) Well, 

 then, come out of the sun into the shadows of New-England woods, or 

 Canadian forests, or the " big timber " of Kentucky, and we will find the 

 white-nun, the recluse of this charming family; and she will speak to us of 

 most sacred and holy things. Vio/a Canadensis is found only in the " silent, 

 quiet places," where the Great Spirit of the universe " broods and rests 

 ungrieved by the discords of human life." Alone, yet never alone, her 

 fragrance, appealing to the inner rather than the outer sense, is never 

 wasted. Spirits tend and wait upon her : we will be reverent, and leave 

 her in her own place. 



The " Muhlenbergs," the American dog-violet ( Viola Muhlenbergii), will 

 grow easily in any damp garden-soil ; and the large violet-blue flowers of 

 V. Sdkirkii (Selkirk's violet) will amply repay cultivation. Viola sagittaia, 

 the arrow-leaved violet, is an interesting species, well adapted to dry and 

 sunny positions ; while V. rostrata, the beaked violet, the " blue roosters " 

 of New-England childhood, should have a place in every collection. Make 

 room for the violets ; for they will give you every month, between snow and 

 snow, something "that's for thoughts." ycanne C. Carr. 



Madison, Wis., June 7, 1867. 



In "The Revue Horticole," M. Carriere has shown that the plant called 

 Abies yezoensis by Lindley, and Abies Fortunei by A. Murray, is not the 

 Abies jfezoensis of Siebold and Zuccarini, nor an Abies at all, but a new 

 genus, which he has named Keteleeria, in honor of M. Keteleer, the emi- 

 nent nursery man of Paris. The name M. Carriere proposes is Keteleeria 

 Fortunei, and it is distinguished from Abies and Picea in having the erect 

 cones of the latter and the persistent scales of the former. 



