10 FAMILLAR GARDEN FLOWERS. 
The Pheenicians found on their coast an abundance of 
the mollusk (Nassa purpura of naturalists), from which 
they extracted a purple pigment. This became to them 
an important article of trade, and the world resounded 
with the praises of “Tyrian dye.” The ancients had not 
many colours, and it was but natural the Greeks should 
name the purple they so much esteemed after the people 
who produced it. Thus it beeame known to them as the 
“ Phcenician colour,” and the Romans subsequently modi- 
fied the term, so that with them it became the “ Punic 
colour.” Thus the botanist has been provided with a 
choice of two (in addition to many more) terms available 
for the indication of the colours of flowers. This purple 
or crimson flower of South America he has named Petuuia 
phenicea, and the brilliant glory pea of New Zealand he 
has named Clianthus puniceus, which, of course, was no 
more known to the Tyrians and Sidonians than the flower 
before us. 
The petunia is almost a tobacco, and it will interest 
the observant loiterer in the garden to compare it with 
the noble Virginia tobacco, which is well worth growing 
for its stately carriage and beautiful flowers. Indeed, the 
petunia zs a tobacco, for its Brazilian name peli, from 
which is derived petunia, means tobacco, and it is fair 
to suppose that, if the plant were dried and prepared, it 
would be found to possess distinctly fragrant and narcotic 
properties. A sheet of petumias in full flower is a glorious 
sight, and the odour the flowers emit when the sun shines 
full upon them is agreeable, but the plant is not a nice 
one to handle or examine; its leafage is unhandsome, its 
habit ungainly, its substance is clammy, and certainly 
does at times give the nose a reminder of tobacco. 
