taking care that each has a few fibres to it; plan. about six of these in a small pot, filled with a composition of loam and rotten leaves or bog-earth, in equal parts, water them and set them by in a shady place for about a week, then plunge them in an open border, exposed not more than half the day to the sun; in dry weather water them once a day; the ensuing spring each pot will be covered with a profusion of bloom: to continue this plant in perfection, it must be thus treated yearly." And it must be recollected that the plant is of that hardy nature as to disdain all tender treatment.

LONDON PRIDE, OR NONE-SO-PRETTY, Saxifraga umbrosa.

Witness the neglect

Of all familiar objects, though beheld

With transport once.

AKENSIDE.

This pretty plant, that now so commonly borders the little flower-gardens of our cottagers, and is so often transplanted by their juvenile gardeners, cannot be known without being admired, although it has of late too frequently given place to plants of inferior beauty. This species of Saxifrage grows

naturally in Yorkshire, but more abundantly in the mountains of Ireland. It is also a native of the Alps, from whence, we presume, it was first brought into our gardens, as it was in cultivation for many ages before it had been noticed as an indigenous plant of these islands.

Parkinson speaks of it, in 1629, under the name of Sedum, and observes, " some of our English gentlewomen have called it Prince's Feather, which although it be but a bye-name, may well serve for this plant, to distinguish it." It was afterwards called None-so-pretty, and if we view it with the attention that its beauties demand, we must acknowledge that but few flowers are prettier, and that Nature has not painted any flower with more delicacy than the pretty-spotted petals of this plant. When viewed through a microscope, its beauties seem to increase, as the young flower-buds appear like so many ripening peaches, whilst the sprays seemed frosted with diamonds. The foliage is also exceedingly pretty, being set in rosettes like the Houseleek and common Daisy. It is one of the plants that will grow in confined and shady situations, and was therefore much cultivated in London as long as an unpaved spot could be found: hence it was called London Pride.

The French named this plant Mignonnette, which means curiously delicate: they also bestow on it the

name of Amourette. In floral language it represents a love-match.

In the garden it should be planted on artificial rock-work, but it is also acceptable in the flowerborder, and at the foot of flowering shrubs. It likewise makes a neat edging where this prim style of gardening is retained; and it propagates itself so fast by offsets, that it is seldom raised from seed: we have, indeed, but few flowers that require so little care in cultivating as the London Pride, or the Parisian Amourette.

STAR OF BETHLEHEM. Ornithogalum.

Natural Order Coronarie. Asphodeli, Juss. A Genus of the Hexandria Monogynia Class.

And shape star-bright appear'd.

MILTON.

THIS bulbous-rooted flower received the reverential title of Star of Bethlehem from the formation of its corolla; for it is not, as many persons formerly supposed, a native of the land of Judea. The Latin name is derived from the Greek Ogudoyanov, which is supposed to have been given it from the whiteness of the root or flower, but, we think, more probably from the white vein that runs up the leaf of the species pyramidale, which the French call Epi-de-lait, milky blade, and Epi-de-la-vierge, virgin's blade, a flower which is indigenous to France and the hills of Spain and Portugal. The common Star of Bethlehem, Ornithogalum umbellatum, grows spontaneously in France, Switzerland, Germany, Carniola, Italy, and some places in the Levant. Mr. Martin says, "with us it is a doubtful native, as many of the bulbous plants are;" but

as it has been found growing naturally in such various parts of England, and more particularly as it never appears to have been introduced as a plant of luxury or medicine, we can have no hesitation in pronouncing it indigenous to our soil. It has been found in the closes about Streatham, in Surrey. Stillingfleet observed it in Norfolk; Relhan, in Cambridgeshire; Sibthorp, near Barton, and in Christ-Church meadows, Oxfordshire; Mr. Robson says it is plentiful in a field near Knaresborough, Yorkshire, and it has been found near Leeds in the same county. The bulbs of these plants should be placed in a light sandy soil, where they increase rapidly by their viviparous nature, which renders it necessary to thin them every second or third year; for although they have the best effect when growing in large patches, yet, if suffered to remain beyond that time, the bulbs impoverish each other, and have only strength to throw up leaves. They should be removed in the month of July or August, which will enable them to become so fixed in the ground as to flower freely in the following April or May. This flower remains in perfection for about fifteen days, during which time it never expands in a wet or gloomy day, and even in the brightest weather the flowers do not open until an hour before noon; and from this circumstance it is frequently called Eleven-o'clock Lady. The petals close again