THE FLOWEE-GAEDEN. 81 



flowers of this tribe, and few are more pleasing. The narcissus is a 

 very nice thing for a parlor or a green-house. 



Passion-Flower.' — So called because the flower has a cross in the mid- 

 dle, and rays, resembling a glory, round the edges of it. It is a singu- 

 larly beautiful flower. The plant is also beautiful. It is a climber, like 

 the honeysuckle ; and, like that, has a succession of blossoms that keep 

 it in bloom a long while. It is raised from cuttings, which, treated as 

 other cuttings are, easily take root. 



PoBOny. — A perennial that may be raised from seed or offsets. A 

 grand flower for shrubberies. Each flower is usually as big as a tea- 

 cup, and one plant will sometimes produce twenty or thirty. 



Pea, Sweet, — There is a great variety in the annual sorts as to 

 color of blossom, and, there is a perennial sort, called everlasting pea. 

 This stands, of course, year after year. The others are sown and culti- 

 vated like the common garden pea. They should have some sticks to 

 keep them up. This is a very showy flower, and remains in bloom a 

 long while. 



Pink, — This flower is too well known to need describing here. 

 There is a great variety of sorts, as to the flower ; but all are cultiva- 

 ted in the same way ; exactly as directed for the clove, which see. The 

 pink-root will last a great many years ; but the flower is seldom so fine 

 as the first year of the plant's blowing. 



PolyantllUS, — ^The polyanthus, the primrose, the oxlip, and the cow- 

 slip, are all .species of the same genus. Every thing that has been said 

 of the auricula (which see) may be said of the polyanthus. It is a very 

 pretty flower, and universally esteemed. It blows finest out of the hot 

 sun. Polyanthuses are best in beds ; for a great part of their merit con- 

 sists of the endless variety which they present to the eye. The poly- 

 anthus has a delicately sweet smell, like that of the cowslip. 



Poppy, — A very bad smell, but still is to be sought for on account of 

 its very great variety, in size, height, and in flower ; and on account of 

 the gayness of that flower. The seed-pods of some are of the bulk of 

 a three-pound weight, while those of others are not so big as even a 

 small pea. The smallest, however, contains about a thousand seeds, 

 and these come up, and the plants flourish, with very little care. A 

 pretty large bed, with two or three hundred sorts in it, is a spectacle 

 hardly surpassed in beauty by any thing in the vegetable creation. It 

 is an annual, of course. It is well known as a medicinal plant; but, it 

 is not so well known as a plant from the seed of which salad-oil is some- 

 times made ! The Germans, on the Rhine, cultivate whole fields of it 

 for this purpose. It may be as well, therefore, for us to take care not 

 to use German salad-oil, which, however, can with great difficulty be 

 distinguished from oil of olives. 



Primrose. — A beautiful little flower of a pale yellow and delicate 

 smell. It comes very early in the spring ; and continues a good while 

 in bloom. Of the fibrous rooted flowers it is the next to the daisy in 

 point of earliness. It is a universal favorite; and, in England, it comes 

 abundantly in woods, pastures and banks. It is perennial like the 

 cowslip, and is propagated in the same manner. The primrose is very 

 ornamental as a border flower, but it has not sported so much as the 



