was Latinised into Aster Sinensis, but the
botanists would not let it alone, and now it is
metamorphosed into Callistephus. "Oh, shepherd!"
exclaims our indignant floriculturist, "pluck the
leaves off a callistephus to see whether your
mistress loves you a little, passionately, or not at
all. Rosina, send a message to Count Almaviva
to tell him to wait for you this evening
under the shade of the Æsculus! And the
periwinkle! Oh, Rousseau, would you exclaim, 'I
have found a Vesica major!' Do you imagine,
oh ye botanists, that you can unbaptise the
hawthorn? Call it Cratægus oxycantha, if you
please, but don't think it was that with which I
scratched my hands, when, at twenty, I plucked
a branch of May and offered it to the lady of my
affections! Even the innocent corn-flower cannot
escape the Bon Jardinier. You ask him for it,
and, with a disdainful air, he replies, I am
not acquainted with it, but here is the
Centaurea cyanus. Will you please my ear, do you
suppose, and awaken the associations of my
happiest days, by calling the sweet lily of the
valley Convallaria? Names like these sound like
insults to beautiful flowers!" It was only the
other day that a French gardener, whose botanical
education was incomplete, replied to an
observation, in which a particular flower was named
in Latin, "Ah, yes, sir; people have taken to
calling these poor flowers by Latin names." And
he seemed to think that a greater injury could
hardly have been done to them. This remark of
poor François was mentioned by me to an
English resident in France of twenty-five years'
standing, and the reply made was as follows:
"Ah, but they call 'em by strange names
themselves. Now, what do you think—you'll
hardly believe it—you know the gherkin!
Well, they call it Carnation" —a slight mistake
for "Cornichon," the English resident's ear
not being yet attuned to the nicest pronunciation.

There are many people to whom the sweetest
odours are disagreeable. Hood's "poor Peggy"
was one of these—she hated the smell of roses,
it being her fate to hawk them through the
streets. The violet, mignionette, honeysuckle,
and other flowers are disliked by some, simply
because their scent is common, and to gratify
senses too delicate for "common things" a
certain Parisian perfumer lately hit upon the
idea of extracting essences from flowers almost
without smell, or of a very faint and fleeting
odour, which only the most refined noses
could appreciate. He accordingly invented
the Bouquet d'Azalia, and the Bouquet de
Camellia, perfumes which have their existence
only in imagination. On the other hand, odours
and colours are now imparted to flowers at
will.

A scientific Flemish journal, a short time
since, contained the following paragraph:
"There has recently been spoken of, as a
novelty, the secret of tinting and perfuming flowers,
and giving them a hue and odour which
does not naturally belong to them. A learned
botanist, M. Charles Morren, has reported that
this process is of old date, and sets forth the
following methods, which he has met with in
some old treatises on horticulture: 'Black,
green, and blue are three colours exceedingly
rare amongst flowers, and amateurs eagerly
endeavour to impart those hues—a result which
is not of difficult attainment. To obtain the
black colouring matter which is to be communicated
to flowers, you gather the small fruit
which grows on the alder, and when it is
thoroughly dried you reduce it to powder. The
juice of rue, dried, produces the green colour,
and blue is procured from the corn-flower,
reduced to a fine powder.' M. Morren recommends
the following method for communicating
either of these colours to flowers:
'You take the colour with which you wish to
impregnate the plant, and mix it with sheep's
dung, a pint of vinegar, and a little salt—the
colouring matter being in the proportion of one-
third. This composition, which should be of
the consistency of a thick paste, is then placed
at the root of a plant of which the flowers are
white. It is then watered with water tinted
of the desired colour, and very shortly you will
have the pleasure of seeing pinks which were
white become black. For green and blue you
employ the same method. To ensure success,
the soil must be prepared: it should be light
and rich, well dried in the sun, and reduced to
a fine powder by sifting. Fill a pot with this
earth, and set in the midst a white stock or
pink, for white flowers alone are subject to this
kind of modification. Neither rain nor night
dew should fall on the plant, and during the
day it must be fully exposed to the sun. If
you wish to give the white flower the hue of
the Tyrian purple you must make use of
pulverised Brazil-wood for the paste, and water it
with the tinted water. By this means charming
lilies may be produced. By watering the paste
with three or four tints in three or four different
places, lilies of different colours are
obtained." Here is the complement of this curious
process, viz. that of artificially communicating
a sweet perfume to all kinds of plants, even to
those which emit an insufferable odour. "You
begin," says M. Morren, "by remedying the
bad smell of a plant before its birth, that is to
say, when the seed is sown, by soaking the seed
for several days in vinegar impregnated with
sheep's dung, to which is added a little musk or
powdered amber. The flowers will have a very
agreeable perfume, and to ensure it the plants
should also be watered with the same liquid."
By a similar process, using rose-water and musk,
Father Ferrari succeeded in conquering the
shocking odour of the African sunflower, to
which he gave the perfume of roses and
violets.

As a set-off to these discoveries, M. Alphonse
Karr offers the following receipt: "Rub with
garlic the spades which you make use of in
digging the ground for a meadow, then sow,
harrow, and water. The sheep that nibble the
grass will have their gigots slightly perfumed
with garlic. If you sprinkle a little madder