MAY. 
107 
first the pistil {fig. 8), formed of a four-celled ovary, exhibited in the four 
round protuberances (ov.), and from the middle of it is a long 
neck rising (styl.), called the style, which is terminated by a 
small head or stigma (sti.), the organ that receives the pollen, 
when distributed by the anthers. Each of these protuberances 
is hollow, and contains an ovary or 
embryo seed, as may be seen by 
opening one of them. 
When the corolla is spread out, 
as in fig. 7, you will see, between 
the five scales and a little below 
them, the five stamens, united to 
the corolla by their filaments, and 
not free, as we have hitherto found 
them. The anthers, as will be 
seen, are in the form of arrow¬ 
heads, and open by two 
dinal sutures on its sides. 
(To be continued.) 
Fig. 7.—Expanded corolla of 
phytum officinale. 
Sym- 
longitu- 
Fig. 8.—Pistil 
of Symphytum 
officinale. 
SOMETHING RELATING TO FLOWER-BEDS, AND OTHER 
MATTERS. 
The season is at hand when the flower gardener is called on to exercise all 
his skill in deciding what colours and arranging what plants are to occupy the 
different beds of the flower garden; and, when he has settled this matter, 
there is still a difficult one remaining, which requires his best judgment and 
forethought: and that is to get all the beds one mass of flower as soon as 
possible, and to keep it up through the summer into the early autumn; for on 
this depends the great charm and beauty of the modern parterre. A few 
remarks, therefore, on a subject of so much importance, will not be altogether 
out of place. 
People may talk as they please, and urge what objections they may to the 
massing system of the modern parterre, but it is all to no use. The English, 
or “ natural system,” is gone never to return; and for this simple reason out 
of many—that a much grander and more magnificent effect can be produced 
within a given space by the geometrical style than by it. 
I think it would be difficult to find any person, now-a-days—no matter how 
great an admirer of the “ natural system” he may be—so bold as to sweep 
away the beautiful terraces and parterres, with their appropriate decorations, 
which surround so many fine mansions, and in their place substitute the 
“ natural system,” by surrounding them with an iron or sunk fence, planting a 
tree or shrub here and there on the lawn, forming' a shrubbery along the belt 
that hides the offices, and immediately in front of the windows forming a set 
of irregular beds of all sizes and shapes, and planting them with deciduous 
and evergreen shrubs, perennials of all sorts and sizes, and filling the spaces 
between these, in summer, with Dahlias and annuals. No; there is no fear 
of our going back to that. Every building, of any architectural pretensions, 
requires accompaniments of a decorative character in conformity with the 
design. 
Not one of the gardeners of the past generation ever dreamed that any¬ 
thing so gay and imposing as the modern parterre could be realised in a 
