208 Miscellanies. 



leaves together, and of this hats are fabricated, which, covered with 

 silk or other stuff, are firm and estremiely light. 



Rice paper was introduced into Europe about thirty years ago. 

 The flowers which were first made of it sold at an exorbitant price. 

 A single bouquet cost the Princess Charlotte of Wales £70 sterling. 



From the quality of this paper, it may be most successfully em- 

 ployed in painting butterflies, flowers, birds, plants and animals. 

 For this purpose, the object is first sketched on common paper, 

 which is then to be pasted on a card. The sketch must be of a 

 deep black. On this the rice paper is fastened, and the painting 

 effected with a pencil and fine colors. When executed in this way, 

 by the most skillful hands, the pictures of butterflies, insects, he. 

 have been often mistaken for the animal itself pasted on the paper. 

 Rice paper has also been employed in lithography, with the most 

 brilliant effect. 



It is desirable, for the purposes of art, that some aquatic plant 

 should be found in our own climate, whose pith is analogous to that 

 of the (Eschynomene. Is it not possible, also, to fabricate a paper, 

 the tissue of which may absorb water, and furnish the relief which 

 gives to rice paper its greatest value. — Jour, de Connois. Vsuelles, 

 Fev. 1832. 



HORTICULTURE. 



JVotes relative to Garden Dahlias, in a letter from Mr. Walner to 

 M. De Candolle. — It is very probable that the Garden Dahlias are 

 hybrids of D. superjlua and D.frustanea, for plants are obtained every 

 year by seed from plants which belong to one or the other of these 

 species. I am in the habit of sowing, in separate pots, the grains of 

 each plant and sometimes those of a single fruit. It appears to me 

 that the color of the flowers of the plant which furnishes the seed, 

 has httle to do with the color of its products. 



The form and disposition of the stems vary without end j they 

 are compact, spreading, branching, smooth, glaucous, polished, hairy, 

 and of all colors. One of my correspondents of Hesse-Cassel, Mr. 

 Weller, sent me some leaves of Dahlia much darker than those of 

 Fagus atropurpurea. The flowers so large, full, beautiful, of so 

 great a variety of Dahlias, seem to me to be the product of many 

 flowers united in a common calyx and cemented together. They 

 are often seen in every stage of union, and sometimes the peduncles 

 are found in bundles from two to five, so as to be very easily counted. 



The full dwarf Dahlias rarely yield seed ; but I collected last au- 

 tumn a few which did. 



