THE PHILADELPHIA FLORIST. 17 



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frihey would no doubt be glad to act on a better when pointed out to A>j 

 gpthem. Some novelty or some show with the mass of the public ^ 

 / seems to be necessary. Had not Mr. Cope's liberal contribution of \ 

 the Victoria, been a good substitute for the absence of the designs 

 usually there, I fear many of the citizens would have deemed the 

 exhibition a failure last year. 



Thomas Meehan. 

 While our talented friend has changed the Venue in this cause, let 

 us hope that he has not drawn an old house about our ears while yet 

 in a state of helpless infancy, and still more anxiously let us hope 

 for an impartial verdict on the merits. — Ed. P. Fl. 



A few species of native plants are in bloom. Of these we may 

 note — Anemone thalictrioides, (Meadow rue like Anemone.) The 

 English name used for Anemone is wind flower ; a pleonasm which 

 we by no means admire or encourage. We shall do our best for 

 those simple speaking persons, who eschew pedngogism, as a French 

 friend of ours terms it. But we must preserve intact the fundamental 

 rules of technical science, which so much facilitate the study of na- 

 ture, and are so much valued by scientific minds. The technical 

 language of chemistry is justly esteemed one of the greatest achieve- 

 ments of the human mind. 



Our small friends are waiting for their turn in the list — these are 

 Droba verna, early whitlow grass, so common everywhere in cultivated 

 ground, with its minute size abundance of white and delicate flowers, 

 and curious siliquea or pouch. Linnseus's system merges in the 

 classification of the tribe, to which this plant belongs, into the natural 

 system, for he takes into account the structure of the seed-vessel, and 

 arrangement of the seeds. We shall explain this in the dissertation 

 promised on the several systems of Botany. We have yet Epigea 

 repens, a beautiful American plant, which will not be naturalized in 

 Britain — at least it is with difficulty kept alive there from its peculiar 

 habits, and the nature of its roots ; it luxuriates only on its native 

 soil, as nature intended it should. Caltha palustris has flowered al- 

 ready in the Jersey marshes ; this is the May-flower of Britain, which 

 the pent up citizens of their manufacturing towns collect when a 

 day of respite is allowed him at the approach of spring. All love 

 flowers if they knew it. We have yet Saxifraga rupestris in abun- 

 dance ; every one who walks into the country sees it ; and Claytonia 

 Virginica, and Symplo carpus fsetidus or skunk cabbage — the roaches 

 know this plant, 1 am told, by colored inhabitants of our vicinity, I 

 ^ who sell it for the discomfiture of this pest of housekeepers. Next r p 

 n^month we shall give more natives. G\ 



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