206 
SKETCH OE THE VEGETATION OE AUSTRALIA. 
ground, like V. Melindres; othei'S grow strong 
and compact with long joints, and consequently 
flowers distinct from each other ; some are 
shrubby and upright, and are excellent for 
borders with other flowers, but for bedding 
out in Dutch gardens with geometrical figures, 
none are so effective as those of the habit of 
V. Melindres, which creep along the ground 
with close short joints which strike root as they 
finish their growth, and form an almost un- 
interrupted mass of flowers, which scarcely 
rise six inches from the bed, and whatever 
figure they are destined to fill up is formed 
almost as close and compact and comparatively 
as near the ground as the pattern in a carpet. 
There are many of diiferent colours that in- 
cline to this habit, and if sufiicient contrast 
can be procured, they are without exception 
the most effective of all subjects to fill up 
geometrical figures. Plants of the habit we 
write of may be planted one foot apart, and 
they will soon meet; when the shoots begin to 
grow, they should be placed in the position 
best calculated to fill up vacant spaces, and 
when they reach the edge of the figure they 
are to fill, they should be stopped at the ends, 
and they must never be allowed to get over 
the edge of the figure. Again, as too vigorous 
a growth is objectionable, and forms the 
joints too long, the soil should not be too rich ; 
half loam and half peat earth will be found 
conducive to bloom and moderate growth ; 
the loam, however, ought to be that from 
rotted turves off a pasture which contains suffi- 
cient vegetable matter and dung to answer 
all the purposes, and it is good for most 
flowers. 
ROSES IN BEDS. 
Many of the most beautiful hybrid China 
roses are not sufficiently hardy to stand a hard 
winter, and are cut off by the frost if subjected 
to the open air without assistance. There are, 
however, various modes of preserving them. 
Mr. Barnes, in a communication to Glenny's 
Grarden Almanac, describes an ingenious and 
rather an effective mode of accomplishing 
this, and at the same time preserving a neat 
appearance. He plants the dwarf and con- 
stantly blooming kinds ; he prepares the bed 
by securing eighteen inches in depth of good 
turfy loam and dung from a cucumber frame, 
in equal quantity and mixed well, filling the 
bed to that thickness after gently pressing, 
planting the roses a foot apart all over, and 
profusely watering them ; then he takes large 
rough white flints, placing them close together 
all over the bed, pressing them a little into 
the soil that they may be firm in their places, 
but leaving room for the roses, which must 
not be bruised ; he then places moss very 
carefully into the interstices and especially 
round the plants. They bloom profusely all 
the summer, and a good way into the winter 
if it be mild. There needs no further pro- 
tection from the frost, only keep them down 
to the moss, and in early spring they grow 
again and flower still more profusely than they 
did the first season of planting. Another 
mode of doing this is to place upright stakes 
in the ground as high as the tops of the roses, 
and throw mats over them at night, which 
are not removed in the day if the frost con- 
tinue. Where roses are in long narrow beds, 
hoops and mats may be easily placed and 
removed. Standijard roses of the tender kind 
may be saved by packing moss between the 
branches of the head, and tying them over 
with cloth or matting ; the stem, being per- 
fectly hardy, needs no protection, though we 
have seen them tied round with hay-bands 
and the heads neglected. But in the colder 
parts of Fi-ance the standards are dug up and 
placed in an out-house with their roots in soil, 
and are then planted out again in spring. 
SKETCH OF THE VEGETATION OF AUSTEALIA. 
In a country so immense as Australia, 
stretching as it does tlu'ough twenty-eight 
degrees of latitude, and nearly forty degrees 
of longitude, considerable variation in the 
vegetation is to be naturally looked for, 
especially as the climate is warm even in 
the most southern parts, while within the 
tropics the usual alternations of wet and dry 
seasons, the latter accompanied with great 
heat, produce a luxuriance of vegetation little 
inferior to that of the Malay Archipelago. 
But the wide distribution of a few families of 
plants, of which the forests and low woods are 
chiefly composed, gives considerable uniformity 
to the appearance of the country in widely 
separated localities, although the plants are 
seldom the same. Few plants, for instance, 
are found at Swan River to be identical in 
species with those growing on the east coast 
in the neighbourhood of Sydney ; and although 
in the neighbourhood of the Gulf of Carpen- 
taria and Port Essington the salt creeks are 
fringed with groves of Mangroves, and large 
tracts of land are covered with cabbage palms 
{Seaforthia sp. and Livistona sp.), yet still the 
general vegetation bears a strong resemblance 
to that of the more southern and temperate 
districts. 
The forests of New South Wales contain 
immense quantities of species of Acacia and 
