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bright yellow blossom is Pinguicula lutea. So striking is it in 

 color and form that many admirers declare it is seldom equaled in 

 nature. Each flower nods at the summit of a slender stalk rising 

 from a rosette of leaves, flat upon the earth. They are irregular 

 in shape, and each is furnished with a long spur at the base. 

 These two lovely wild flowers are easily cultivated. Like ferns 

 they grow in shade, moisture and spongy leaf mold. Transplant 

 the soil of the woods along with the flowers, and locate their new- 

 quarters in partial shade, where it is cool and moist, and the tulips 

 and hyacinths of spring must look to their laurels. 



FLOWERS THAT ARE LUMINOUS. 



There are few subjects more curious, and none, perhaps, less 

 understood, than the occasional luminosity of certain plants and 

 animals. We do not allude to that phosphorescence which 

 arises from decomposing substances, and which every one must 

 have observed on putrid fish, decaying fungi, and the like; but to 

 those luminous appearances exhibited under peculiar conditions 

 by living structures ; as, for example, by the flowers of the mari- 

 gold, and by the female firefly. The former phenomena are owing 

 to an actual combustion of phosphoric matter in the atmosphere, 

 precisely similar to that which takes place when we rub a stick of 

 phosphorus on the walls of a dark chamber; the latter belong to 

 peculiar states of growth and excitement, and seem at times to be 

 ascribable to electricity, at others to phosphorescence, and not un- 

 frequently to plain optical principles. It must be admitted, how- 

 ever, that not only are the causes but little understood, but that 

 even the appearances themselves are questioned by many, who 

 would resolve the majority of instances on record into more visual 

 delusions. It is, therefore, to little more than a recital of the bet- 

 ter authenticated facts that we can as yet direct attention. 



Flowers of an orange color, as the marigold and nasturtium, 

 occasionally present a luminous appearance on still, warm even- 



