It

always produce seed, and it is scarcely worth while looking after it, because they can be more advantageously raised from cuttings. These should be taken when the growth of the young shoots is nearly completed, and just before they begin to harden. Dibble them into a bed of sandy earth, give them a sprinkle of water, put a bell-glass or handlight over, and-forget them. In about two months you may remove the bell-glass, for they will be all rooted. will be well to leave them undisturbed until the month of April following, when they may be planted out to grow into specimens. Border-plants that are somewhat straggling in form may be improved by judicious pruning, and by pegging a few shoots into places that are vacant. We have had the rock candytuft on a highly-dressed border, and we kept all the plants in shape by annual clipping, the result being that they were as round and convex as watchglasses. We do not advise any general adoption of this procedure, but where everything should be formal and precise it is at least admissible.

Abutilon striatum.

T never rains but it pours

be a suitable text for a discourse on the abutilon. Only the other day-say the day before yesterday -somebody discovered that the abutilon might by careful crossbreeding be made to yield a vast variety of characters and colours. Presto! Now there are dozens of new names and varieties, and they constitute attractive and interesting collections of decorative plants for festive dressings as well as for the quiet conservatory. But as the florists multiplied the varieties they forgot the native inborn

elegance of the plant, and were content to grow their named varieties in the form of diminutive bushes, certainly very pretty, but affording no idea of the proper splendour of the plant. Let us, then, turn from the new to the old fashion. The turn takes us into a snug conservatory, where the plants are allowed to show a little. of the negligence of nature "wild and wide." Here the abutilon appears as a luxurious vine, with elegant leaves

divided into pointed lobes, and bearing curious bell-like flowers of a dull orange-colour, and curiously striped. It is singular that a South American tree should obtain an Eastern name, for abutilon is Arabic for mallow, and this plant is of the mallow tribe. It is the striped mallow vine of the Rio Negro and the Organ Mountains.

The common and comparatively hardy plant introduced from Brazil in 1837 as Abutilon striatum has been found to thrive in the open border as a wall-plant in sheltered spots in the south-west of England, but, generally speaking, the cool conservatory is the proper place for it. There it soon clothes the rafters with its elegant leafage, and it has the great merit of producing flowers during about nine months out of twelve. Any good soil will suit it, and in a town greenhouse, where the light is neither abundant nor pure, it will thrive as well as any good thing that may be planted.

The named varieties to which reference has been made have been raised from A. striatum, A. venosum, A. Darwinii, and A. vexillarium chiefly, and they comprise flowers of all colours, save shades of blue, and the prevailing tones are white, yellow, and red. Amongst them are varieties with richly variegated leaves, and these are not only of great value as conservatory plants, but are largely employed in what is called "sub-tropical bedding" in grand gardens, the trees being allowed to rise to a height of two to four feet, and being mixed with other plants of like growth to bring out the splendid colours of their leafage. This is all very fine and very wonderful, of course, but we are rustic enough to prefer the half-wild abutilon vine that we courted under to all the great sub-tropical beds of contrasted leafage that have been planted in both hemispheres.