174 
THE LADIES’ FLORAL CABINET. 
display their airy masses of tiny flowers. These are fine 
plants for dry and sandy soils, their roots penetrate the 
ground so deeply. The creeping milk-weed, Euphorbia 
corollata , is another deep-rooting plant, which, although 
a weed in many places, is worth growing in our gardens ; 
its “ flowers ” are pretty and in a cut state last a long 
time in good condition. The bright red fantastic flowers 
of the bee-balm ( Monarda didyma) are very showy; the 
large yellow evening primroses attract our attention at 
night, and the lesser diurnal forms, as CE. rip aria, our 
notice in the daytime. Some of the taller phloxes are in 
bloom ; they begin with P. Carolina and P. glaberrima , 
pink-purple, hardy and copious, and notwithstanding 
books to the contrary, so far as my observation extends, 
they are identical. Lysimachia clethroides is pretty, but 
it spreads about so much as to become a nuisance. Add 
to these the host of showy composites, home and exotic, 
that now begin to display their brilliant charms for our 
admiration. 
Shrubs. —May and June are the heyday of garden 
shrubs, but enough remain for July to render our gardens 
gay. The smoke tree ( Rhus Cotinus) is a cloudy mass ; 
every branchlet of the sorrel tree ( Oxydendron arboreuni) 
is tipped with bunches of lily-of-the-valley-like flowers; 
Andromeda speciosa and its varieties are tasseled or 
wreathed with waxy bells ; old bushes of “ Californian ” 
privet have lots of white bunches ; Koelreuteria pani- 
culata , with immense panicles of yellow blossoms, is in its 
gayest; the bladder-sennas are full of yellow pea-flowers 
and rattling pods; the chaste-tree ( Vitex) has many 
bluish clusters; the small buckeye displays its slender 
raceme-like panicles above its bank of leaves; the catal- 
pa’s wealth 'of open panicles is unsurpassed; Rubus de- 
liciosus is clothed in white; the lead plant’s {Amorpha 
canescens) violet-purple spikes add variety to the garden ; 
fleecy pink sprays appear on the current growths of the 
Chinese tamarix; our native hydrangeas may be con¬ 
sidered for admission; the spirmas have not all past: 
Douglasi, callosa , salicifolia and its varieties still remain 
with us; the lovely stuartias are in bloom, and althazas 
seek an introduction. These and many others we may 
have in July. And should we choose to add ornamental 
fruited shrubs, we may find them in Tartarian honey¬ 
suckles and Eleagnus longipes. Among vines the wis¬ 
taria gives us a few more flowers, the trumpet creeper is 
in its prime, and the pink wreaths of the prairie-rose are 
worth admiring. 
Wild Flowers. —The cornflowers occur in patches 
in the meadows and hayfields, the wood lily in open 
spaces in dryish ground, the Canada lily in the damp 
meadows, and the American turk’s-cap lily in the swamps. 
The orange-colored asclepias is common along the rail¬ 
roads and in sandy land in many places. The meadow 
beauty forms pink patches in moist places, and the wil¬ 
low-herb is plentiful in burnt-over woodlands, in meadows, 
and scattered along mountain roadsides. Meadow rue is 
scattered in the swamps, golden hypericums in waste 
fields, bouncing-bet by the roadside, butter-and-eggs 
(.Linaria ) wherever it can get a foothold, and chicory in 
the forenoon along our outer streets and turnpikes. These 
and many others now in bloom are very suggestive. 
Among Wild Shrubs the clammy azalea inhabits 
the swamps, the common elder the thickets and fence- 
rows, wild-roses with button bushes by the water’s edge 
or associated with mulleins in dry and rocky ground; 
viburnums flourish in the margins of the woods, clethras 
where the soil is rich and moist, and the red-root ( Ceano- 
thus Americanus ) in dry ground and rocky slopes most 
anywhere. And then, among our garden shrubs in blos¬ 
som now, behold how many of them are natives of our 
hills and woods ! 
William Falconer. 
THE CAMELLIA. 
C OMMEMORATIVE names so abound in catalogues 
of plants that a garden may be regarded, not only 
as a selected portion of the book of nature, but also of 
the book of men. A large proportion of the most valued 
plants are, by virtue of the familiar names they bear, liv¬ 
ing memorials of the masters of the world, whose names 
a grateful posterity would not willingly let die, and has, 
therefore, associated them with things that may be re¬ 
garded as everlasting; for Nature will take care of her 
own children even when our neglect may have exposed 
them to the danger of extinction. 
The camellia was named in honor of George Joseph 
Camellus, or Kamel, who was a Moravian Jesuit, and 
traveled in Asia. Being a botanist and a careful collec¬ 
tor of curiosities, he wrote an admirable monograph of 
the vegetation of the Isle of Luzon, the most northerly of 
the Philippines. 
That the Camellia japonica is the grandest of our 
conservatory and garden shrubs the reader of this sketch 
does not need to be informed, and in the brief space at 
our command we will endeavor to do better than eulo¬ 
gize its beauty. The plant was introduced into Eng¬ 
land by Lord Petre some time before the year 1739, 
and the first plants were killed by being placed in .too 
high a temperature. Thus at the very start a lesson was 
learned, and in the same direction there is yet another 
lesson to be learned, as will be stated presently. Its 
original and proper name is Camellia japonica , but it 
has been also called Tsubaki, Rosa chinensis and Thea 
chinensis. The last cited name makes occasion for the 
remark that the tea-plant is closely alied to the camellia, 
and several sorts of true camellia are available as tea- 
plants. Those who can take interest in the economical 
view of the subject will not object to be told that the 
leaves of Camellia sasanqua are dried to mix with 
tea and communicate to it a grateful odor. A Nepaul 
species, known as Camellia kissi, is so much character¬ 
ized by the flavor and odor of tea that it might be em- 
