NOTES ON FLOWERS. 
297 
no scent to help them out. Sweet peas are 
generally used, but the smell of them, and not 
their appearance, makes them popular. In 
making up large bouquets, all things are used, 
very much to the disadvantage of the nosegay. 
The flowers to use in hand bouquets should be 
of a very superior description to those which 
are now made up. Some of the best flowers 
for cutting and lasting, and for beauty while 
they do last, or for their admirable perfume, 
or their brilliancy, or some very desirable 
property, are the Hoveas, Ericas, Daphnes ; 
the thick petaled Azaleas, Gardenias, Camel- 
lia japonica, especially Sasanqua rosea (the 
smallest), Myrtifolia, Tricolor, and the smaller 
sized ones ; some of the Chorozemas, and the 
Epacrises. The Laurustinus and Andro- 
meda floribunda will help out ; and for bril- 
liance there is not a more beautiful subject 
than the Euphorbia jacquiniflora. Of the 
annuals there are but few that do well for 
small bouquets ; of those that will, Collinsia 
bicolor and Nemophila insignis are the best. 
Convolvulus minor is very beautiful, but can 
rarely be kept open, so that it deteriorates 
after a short time. All the flowers of the 
orange, lemon, and citron tribe are splendid 
subjects. These are the kind of things to 
place in a lady's hand. The ordinary flowers 
at balls and theatres look miserably dull to- 
wards the end of the evening ; but the sorts 
we have mentioned would keep for days were 
they returned to water on being carried home, 
and be better the third night than one of ordi- 
nary flowers would the last half of the first 
evening. But the bouquets of the markets and 
of half the fancy shops are patched up almost 
any how ; odd blooms without stems, stale 
flowers, fastened with all manner of contri- 
vances, and supported altogether with a rim 
of paper, make up what is called a bouquet ; 
whereas if a lady would take the trouble to 
pull it to pieces, and see the sort of rubbish 
it comprises, it would set them against such 
common trash. Let us remind the purchasers 
of nosegays to have no rubbishing paper 
round them, but to order a few good flowers, 
tied simply together by their proper stems 
only, and that in a way not to conceal that 
they are real sprigs of what they profess to 
be, instead of a lot of things adjusted on the 
surface, and huddled together so that not two 
flowers can assume their proper shape, but all 
are alike squeezed, and jammed, and bound so 
that they cannot look well a whole evening. 
Flowers never look so well as when they 
assume their natural position. We know that 
this will force the vendors to have better 
flowers ; and if a lady choose to untie her bou- 
quet afterwards, and put the flowers in water, 
she may use them again and again 5 whereas 
a buncb of the ordinary stuff, with a clipped 
paper round it, would, if untied, be unfit for 
anything. Why, it was the fashion at one 
west-end house to fasten individual flowers on 
wires for stilts, so that in a very short period 
they fade for want of nourishment, even the 
nourishment of a stem. It is true that a few 
flowers, by these means, are made to go a 
great way, but they are of no value as flowers, 
nor are they of any use as a bouquet. Accord- 
ing to our ideas, a bouquet ought to . be com- 
posed of a number of sprigs of such plants as 
we have named in bloom, handsome in them- 
selves separately, as well as in a bunch, and 
some taste should be displayed by the tying 
them together, so as to contrast the colours 
well ; and the first person that puts out bou- 
quets after this fashion will, we have no doubt, 
secure a good trade, for the difference will be 
seen in an instant, and duly appreciated by 
the purchasers of cut flowers. We mean, first, 
substituting good sprigs, with bloom on them, 
for mutilated rubbish that wants manufac- 
turing ; and we mean also, flowers of the 
description we have mentioned, instead of the 
common, soft, flabby subjects, which droop 
directly. Flowers have suffered a good deal 
of odium through the careless — we were going 
to say fraudulent — mode of making up nose- 
gays ; and if the imposition be not promptly 
stopped, ladies will go to the theatre and balls 
without any, rather than such as they have 
hitherto been put off with. 
NOTES ON FLOWERS AND FLOWERING 
PLANTS. 
Begonia Dregii, Link, etc. (Drege's Be- 
gonia, or Elephant's-ear). — Begoniaceas. — A 
small perennial plant, with large flattened tu- 
berous roots, and erect fleshy stems, a foot or 
more in height, rising several from the root, 
and branched ; the leaves are alternate, oblique, 
elliptic-rhomboid, and angulated ; the flowers 
are white, growing in pairs from the axils of 
the leaves, male and female together. A native 
of the Cape of Good Hope. Introduced in 
1838. Flowers from July to September, _or 
longer. Culture. — Requires starting in a 
stove or hot frame, and subsequent removal to 
a greenhouse ; peat and loam ; propagated by 
cuttings, in heat, or by dividing the plant. 
Anemone vitifolia, Buchanan (Vine- 
leaved Wind-flower). — Ranunculacea? § Ane- 
moneae. — Aherbaceous perennial, with an erect 
branching stem, growing about two feet 
high, palmately-divided leaves, and* white 
flowers, consisting of five concave petals. A 
native of Nepal. Introduced in 1829. Flowers 
from June to September. Culture. — Hardy ; 
ordinary garden soil ,• propagated by division 
of the plant. 
