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THE BEAUTIFUL IN GROUND-SURFACE. 
understand, is different from that generally practised, and which we hope, when some doubtful points 
shall have been cleared up, we may he permitted to make public. 
Our figure of C. ibericum ,* a beautiful, but little known species, was made, in January last, from 
Messrs. Bollison’s nursery at Tooting, aided at a and b by blossoms from some of Mr. Atkins’s 
more vigorously grown plants, which were communicated along with the hybrid C. Atkinsii. Its 
affinity is with C. vernum, hut it differs altogether from that species in its foliage. 
In C. Atkinsii the leaves are large (two and a half by two inches), ovate obtuse cordate at the 
base, with a deep sinus the sides of which overlap, dark glossy green, with an irregular pale zone 
within the margin; the imder surface is liver-coloured, or dull purple. The flowers are elevated on 
longish verrucose stalks, and are of a French white, marked with a deep crimson ovate blotch at the 
base of each segment; the calyx consists of five acute lance-shaped pubescent segments; the corolla 
has a short globose tube, and a limb of five broadly ohovate segments nearly seven-eighths of an inch 
long ; the mouth of the tube is nearly circular, the angles being indistinct; the stamens are included, 
but the style equals the tube. The flowers are scentless. 
C. ibericum produces flat heart-shaped leaves, having an open sinus, and the margin very slightly 
sinuate-dentate or entire; they are deep green, with an irregular heart-shaped belt of pale greyish-green 
some distance within the margin, the veins sunken on the upper face, prominent and green beneath, on a 
dull reddish purple ground. The flowers vary in colour ; in some, they are pale rosy, or flesh-coloured, 
in other plants, deep rose-colour, in some they are white; but in all cases they are marked with a 
broad ovate spot at the base of the segments, which spot is either pimple or crimson, and is extended in 
the centre as far as the mouth, which, in the front view, thus shows five purple bars or spots; the bases 
of the segments are curved outwards at the margin, the mouth thus becoming pentangular, with concave 
sides. The calyx lobes are acutely lance-shaped; the tube of the corolla is ventricose, the segments of 
the limb either roundish obovate or oblong obovate. The stamens are quite inclosed, and are slightly 
exceeded by the blunt, simple stigma, which is somewhat exserted.—M. 
THE BEAUTIFUL IN GEOUHD-SUBFACE. 
M BTISTS and men of taste have agreed that all forms of acknowledged beauty are composed of 
curved lines. The principle applies as well to the surface of the earth as to other objects. The 
most beautiful shape in ground is that where one undulation melts gradually and invisibly into 
another. Everyone who has observed scenery where the fore-ground has been remarkable for beauty, 
must have been struck by this prevalence of curved lines ; and every landscape gardener well kn ows 
that no grassy surface is so captivating to the eye as one where these gentle swells and undulations 
rise and melt away gradually into one another. Some poet, happy in his fancy, has called such bits 
of grassy slopes and swells “ earth’s smiles; and when the effect of the beauty and form of outline is 
heightened by the pleasing gradation of light and shade, caused by the sun’s light variously reflected 
by such undulations of lawn, the simile seems strikingly appropriate. 
A flat or level surface is considered beautiful by many persons, though it has no beauty in itself. 
It is, in fact, chiefly valued because it evinces art. Though there is no positive beauty in a straight 
or level line, it is often interesting as expressive of poiver, and we feel as much awed by the boundless 
prairie or desert, as by the lofty snow-capped hill. On a smaller scale, a level surface is sometimes 
agreeable in the midst of a rude and wild country, by way of contrast, as a small level garden in the 
Alps will sometimes attract us astonishingly, that would be passed by unnoticed in the midst of a flat 
and cultivated country. Hence, as there are a thousand men who value power, where there is one who 
can feel beauty, we see all ignorant persons who set about embellishing their pleasure-grouuds, or even 
the site for a home, immediately commence levelling the surface. Once brought to this level, improvement 
* C. ibericum , “ Goldie.”—Leaves exactly heart-shaped, with, an open sinus, entire or very slightly sinuate-toothed, zoned with 
greyish-green, purple beneath; calyx teeth lance-shaped acute; tube of the corolla ventricose, mouth pentangular, with lunate 
sides ; segments of the limb roundish obovate or oblong-obovate; stamens shorter than the blunt, simple stigma, which is included 
or very slightly exserted.—M. 
