THE LADIES MAGAZINE OF GARDENING. 
331 
effect was produced; the fine rosy crimson of the blossoms of the latter 
were changed into a variegated purple hue. This little species, the 
stolonifera , is well known in almost every garden as a desirable spring 
flower; it is equally capable of gracing with beauty the windows of our 
sitting-rooms in winter. The snowy blossoms of nivea are equally 
attractive. Doubtless P. ovata Listoniana would do equally as well; 
and P. divaricata , with its beautiful light blue flowers, would be very 
elegant when growing in so early a season of the year. There can be no 
reason why all the dwarf sorts may not be so cultivated; and were they 
arranged, for instance, along the front lights of the common greenhouse 
of ordinary temperature, they might furnish a most abundant bloom, to 
aid in making up bouquets, when flowers, are so much needed, and often 
so scarce. Many of the out-door garden flowers are thus peculiarly fitted 
to add a grace and an effect to the more tender and delicate ; but as we 
see them mingled with hundreds of others, in our flower-beds, we are apt 
to overlook their particular beauty and individual charms. And though 
they are the hardy children of northern and colder latitudes, yet they 
mingle well with the sunny beauties of more favoured climes, losing 
nothing by the comparison, and lending their happiest aid. J. L. R. 
Chelmsford, 
April , 1841. 
MR. ELLIS’S PLANT-CASE. 
(Continued from page 315.) 
In opposition to these results, Dr. Priestley, from certain experiments, 
was led to believe that plants, instead of vitiating the air by their vege¬ 
tation, reverse the effects produced in it by combustion and the respiration of 
animals, and thus become the chief means by which the purity of the atmo¬ 
sphere is maintained ( Observations on Air , abridged , vol. iii. p. 251). He 
caused plants to vegetate in vessels of air which had been previously vitiated 
by combustion or respiration, and in some instances this foul air was restored 
by the plants to a condition capable of again supporting those processes ; 
but he did not ascertain the mode in which the air itself was vitiated, 
although he believed that light contributed to effect its subsequent puri¬ 
fication. His great contemporary, Scheele, repeated these experiments, 
but could never find the foul air which he employed to be purified by 
growing plants, either when the vessels were placed in sunshine or in 
shade. For this difference in their results a sufficient reason may be 
found in the fact, that the foul air used by Priestley consisted, in part, of 
