line 
) Diss 
THE PETUNIA, 
LPetunia phenicea, 
; 
ne PHGNICEA is un- 
known in the land of the Phani- 
cians, being a native of Buenos 
Ayres, whence it was introduced 
in 1835]. Asa matter of course, 
the spirited maritime nation who 
built Tyre and Sidon, and who 
in their day were proud of their 
King Thram, friend of Solomon, 
knew nothing of any kind of 
petunia, because, to use the lan- 
guage of a familiar song, the 
New World “had not then been 
invented.” And yet ina certain 
way, by the involutions of lan- 
guage, this plant takes us round 
hy way of South America to the eastern 
shores of the Mediterranean, for it is a 
Pheenician flower, and rightly named, and we are bound 
to connect it with the intelligent sailor race who brought 
the ideas and the gold of the east to the southern and 
western coasts of this country, and took away in exchange 
the tin of Cornwall, and the report of our wealth of timber 
and the suitableness of these isles for colonisation. 
B 
