AURICULAS. 
75 
the free mountain air, it will of course require a full supply on 
every favorable occasion to ensure its continuance in health. 
With regard to the training of the plant, it appears to be improved 
by frequent stopping while young, inasmuch as that so many 
more branches are thus obtained ; if this is repeated three or four 
times the plant will assume a dwarf and dense habit, when it 
may be allowed to grow unrestrained, lest by persevering in the 
“ stopping ” the production of blossoms be prevented, in conse¬ 
quence of their being terminal on the branches; a few slight 
sticks will probably be required to support the stems, but they 
should be so placed as to preserve the graceful pendent character 
of the flexile branches, which we regard as one of its chief attrac¬ 
tions, being of uncommon occurrence in plants of the same class. 
Its propagation we anticipate will be found as easy as the other 
part of culture, doubtless, half-ripened shoots taken off in 
summer, potted in sandy peat, covered with a bell and placed in 
a very moderate heat, will root readily, and established specimens 
may be formed in one or two seasons. In botanical classification 
the genus Abelia is included in the natural order Caprifoliacece, 
not an extensive one certainly, but rich in free-flowering hand¬ 
some shrubs; in the Linnean arrangement the genus is placed 
in the class Pentandria, and order Monogynia. 
Editor. 
AURICULAS. 
This month the florist reaps the first reward of his past cares, 
in the rich display of his auricula flowers. In the southern 
districts they have, like all other vegetation, exhibited for some 
time the effects of this most extraordinary season, insomuch that 
by the middle of March is was here necessay to remove the prin¬ 
cipal blooming plants to the shelter of a north wall, or the flowers 
would have been expanded and gone long since, and some trouble 
is likely to be felt by those who grow with the view of competing 
at floral shows, in the preservation of the flowers through the 
present warm and summer-like weather. Let me caution the 
