AND THEIR SETTINGS. 
261 
following, which are also suitable for the edging of a vase : “ Mau- 
randia bardayana^ white or purple flowers ; Vinca degantissima 
aurea, foliage deep green, netted with golden yellow, flowers deep 
blue ; Cerastium tomentosum^ foliage downy white, flowers white ; 
Convolvidiis mauritanicus^ flowers light blue, profuse ; Solarium 
jasminoides variegatum^ foliage variegated, flowers white with yel- 
low anthers : Geranium peltatum elegans, a variety of the ivy- 
leaved, with rich glossy foliage and mauve-colored flowers : Fani- 
cum variegatum, a procumbent grass from New Caledonia, of 
graceful habit of growth, with beautiful variegated foliage, striped 
white, carmine, and green.” These are mostly half-hardy con- 
servatory plants, and if the proprietor has no conservatory they 
must be purchased, when wanted, of the florists, or they may be 
started by a skillful lady-florist in her own window. Nearly every 
lady of refined taste longs to have a conservatory of her own. But 
a building, or even an entire room, built for, and devoted to plants 
alone, is an expensive luxury. Those who have well-built houses 
heated by steam, or other good furnaces, may easily have a plant- 
window in a sunny exposure in which the plants required to bed 
in open ground the following summer may be reared ; and beautiful 
well-grown plants may be obtained from the commercial florists to 
keep the window gay with blossoms and foliage at a price greatly 
below the cost for which amateurs can raise them in their own con- 
servatories. These remarks are not designed to discourage the 
building of private conservatories by those who can afford them — far 
from it — but rather to suggest to those who cannot afford them, not 
to be envious of those who can. 
Roses. — We have not previously mentioned the Rose, among 
flowers and bedding plants, for the reason that, being the queen 
of flowers, more than ordinary attention is usually considered due 
to her. Besides, her royal family are so numerous, so varied and 
interesting in their characters, and have been the subject of so 
many compliments from poets, and biographical notices from pens 
of distinguished horticulturists, that it would be presumption 
to attempt to describe, in a few brief paragraphs, the peculiar 
beauties and characteristics of the family; still less of all its 
thousand members. The mere fact of royalty, however, has at- 
