PANSY, (Viola tricolor,) Nat. Ord. Violacecz. 
The Pansy is the little Heartsease of Europe, become somewhat naturalized in America, and 
wonderfully improved by cultivation. It was about sixty years ago that this flower first attracted 
the special notice of florists, their attention being called to it by the great 
success of a lady amateur. We give an engraving of the Hearts-ease 
as it is found wild. The French call it Pensee, and this is, no doubt, the 
origin of the common name, Pansy. The Pansy is now a popular 
flower with both florists and amateurs, giving abundance of bloom until 
after severe frosts, enduring our hard winters with safety, and greeting 
us in the earliest spring with a profusion of bright blossoms. It will 
flower better in the middle of the summer, if planted where it is some- 
what shaded from the hot 
sun, and especially if fur- 
nished with a good supply 
of water, but in almost any situation will give fine 
flowers in the spring and autumn. If plants com.e 
into bloom in the heat of summer, the flowers will 
be small at first ; but as the weather becomes cooler, 
they will increase in size and beauty. Often plants 
that produce flowers two and a half inches in diam- 
eter during the cool, showery weather of spring, 
will give only the smallest possible specimens 
during the dry weather of summer. To have good 
flowers, the plant must be vigorous, and make a 
rapid growth. No flower is more easily ruined by 
ill treatment or adverse circumstances. Seed may 
be sown in the hot-bed or open ground. If young 
plants are grown in the autumn, and kept in a frame 
during the winter, with a little covering in the 
severest weather, they will be ready to set out very 
early in the spring, and 
give flowers until hot 
weather. If seed is sown 
in the spring, get it in as 
early as possible, so as to 
have plants ready to flower during the spring rains. Seed sown in a 
cool place in June or July, and well watered until up, will make plants 
for autumn flowering. The Tansies make a beautiful bed, and are 
interesting as individual flowers. No flower is so companionable and life-like. It requires no 
very great stretch of the imagination to cause one to believe that they see and move, and 
acknowledge our admiration in a very pretty, knowing way. 
PERILLA, Nat. Ord. Labiatce. 
The Perilla Nankinensis is one of the best of the ornamental-leaved annuals. It has a broad, 
serrated leaf, of a purplish mulberry color, and makes a well 
formed plant, as represented in the engraving, and eighteen inches 
or more in height. It is very desirable for the center of a bed of 
ornamental-leaved plants, and we can recommend it also for a low 
screen or hedge, and such hedges will be found exceedingly useful 
in many situations. The Perilla is one of the plants that is good 
for some special Avork, indeed, almost invaluable, but in an ordinary 
collection of flower seeds would not be desirable. We are induced 
to mention this fact here, because, last season, a gentleman wrote 
us that we had better leave this plant out of our collection, as it was 
no better than a weed — and, perhaps, he was right, for a weed is 
An Aster among a bed of Petunias would be a weed. 
«1 
any plant out of place. 
