FLORICULTURAL NOTICES. 
233 
the principles in which the striking variety and inequality of the surface of our 
globe is effected, and applying these generally/ in the formation of pleasure gardens, 
we are persuaded that a greater degree of originality, harmony, and beauty, might 
be attained. 
Experiments may very properly be included in our remarks on observation, 
since it is the investigation of their results, and not their mere institution, to which 
we are desirous of directing the gardening student. Observation alone must be con- 
fined to natural events ; but, by experiment, new and sometimes preferable systems 
of cultivation are elicited, and the application of horticultural art is simplified, 
facilitated, and improved. If it be objected that young gardeners do not possess 
the means for conducting inquiries of this nature, we may reply that native plants 
are the property of every one, and a number of most interesting experiments might 
be performed upon these, by which the general functions of the vegetable system 
could be satisfactorily ascertained. We will only add that inquiries of this, as 
much as of a higher order, are highly worthy of the experimenter, and personally 
and publicly beneficial ; that they betoken true genius, increase both the resources 
and uses of information, and invariably tend to the discovery and establishment of 
truth. 
FLORICULTURAL NOTICES. 
NEW AND RARE PLANTS FIGURED IN THE LEADING BOTANICAL PERIODICALS FOR 
OCTOBER. 
CLASS I.— PLANTS WITH TWO COTYLEDONS (DICOTYLEDONE^:]). 
THE WATER-LILY TRIBE {Nymphoeacece). 
Neli5mbium lCtteum. Yellow-flowered Sacred bean. With the exception of 
Magnolia macrophylla^ this handsome aquatic is said to bear larger flowers than 
any other plant indigenous to the North American continent. It has been known 
in this country many years, but Sir W. J. Hooker is not aware of any instance in 
which it had flowered, till its blossoms were developed in the collection of 
E. Sylvester, Esq., of Chorley, Lancashire, about last July. In North America, 
where it is most abundant towards the Southern States, but is also found in Lake 
Ontario, it inhabits stagnant waters, and is called Water Chinquepin. Mr. Sylvester 
attributes his success in flowering it, to the comparatively low temperature in 
which it was kept during the former part of the present year ; as it had for a long 
previous period been retained in a hot stove without producing a single blossom. 
Probably a cistern in a greenhouse is the most congenial situation, it being plausibly 
conjectured that a pool in the open air would be much too cold. Bot. Mag. 3753. 
THE INDIAN FIG TRIBE {Cactacea;). 
LepIsmium Myosurus. Mouse-tail Lepismium. One of the numerous divisions 
into which the old genus Cactus has been separated. The plant under notice has 
vol. VI. — NO. lxx. h h 
