288 ANOMALIES. 



thing else, and the vegetation which is predomi- 

 nant. Thus, Japan is a temperate and in some 

 places even a cold country; and some of the 

 plants which have been introduced into Britain 

 from Japan, stand the winter not only better 

 than the plants of southern Europe, but better 

 even than some of the native plants which are 

 found on the bleakest places. The Aucuba Ja- 

 ponica, which makes the shrubbery so gay with its 

 large and handsome leaves mottled with green 

 and gold, actually bears the rigour of an English 

 winter much better than a furze bush on the com- 

 mon; and of a variety of evergreens, many of 

 them reckoned of the most hardy kind, that were 

 exposed to a snow-storm in the winter of 1826, a 

 Camellia Japonica, was the only one that survived. 

 There is therefore very little doubt that by due 

 care the camellia might be made a common 

 shrubbery plant in all, the warmer parts of the 

 country, and might flower there to greater perfec- 

 tion than it does in the conservatory. The Dahlia 

 never came to its full beauty till it was cultivated 

 and allowed to flower in the open air. When we 

 recollect that the colours of flowers, and indeed of 

 all plants, are chiefly owing to the light of the 

 sun, and that the light never comes through glass 

 entire, unless when it falls on the surface at right 

 angles, which can only be for a very little while 

 of the day through the same piece of glass, we 

 may have at least some notion of the fact that 

 plants in a situation so contrary to their natural 

 habits must fall off. There are, indeed, not a few 

 of the vegetable productions of the tropical coun- 

 tries which naturally inhabit places not very un- 

 like our hot-houses : they are surrounded by thick 



