flowers, each three inches wide, and of the purest whiteness, is one of the most beautiful objects in the garden at any season. It is precisely such a bed as this which furnished the text of what we are writing.

The trilliums are, for the most part, an exceedingly shy family. They love moist, half-shaded woods, and thrive in the rich mould of decayed vegetation. There are many kinds; but most of them, when removed to the garden, pine and dwindle. We well remember, some years ago, admiring the profusion and beauty of the pink-and-white flowers of Trillium pictum, in a swamp at Island Pond, Vt., not half a mile behind the railway station. These, and the fine native shrub, Viburnum lantanoides, with its rich clusters of milk-white flowers, were queens of the solitude. Once or twice since then, we have planted Trillium pictum in the garden, given it all the rotten leaves it could desire, and otherwise encouraged it to the best of our skill; but it would not thrive; and we doubt if any of it is now living. The purple trillium is more manageable, and has lived here six or eight years, blooming a little every spring. Yet, as a garden flower, neither this nor any other of its race is to be compared with Trillium grandiflorum, which, in a well-prepared soil, that is, a light soil enriched with leaf-mould, will thrive to admiration, and bloom with increased beauty every year. The plants should not be often removed or divided, except for purposes of propagation. It is a tedious and difficult process to raise them from seed; and to divide the root is the best way to increase them for the amateur cultivator. We know no locality where they grow wild in this neighborhood. Ours were sent us from Canada, where they grew in a pasture on the slopes of the Mountain of Montreal. There were about twenty of the tuberous roots, which, being planted, bloomed rather feebly the next year, but improved every spring, till they formed a superb circle of bloom. Some of them have since been divided,

and it will require one or more seasons to restore them to perfection. The buds open with the whiteness of a snow-drift; and they remain a long time in this state, at length assuming a rosy tint as they fade.

A bed of polyanthus, side by side with the trillium, forms a striking contrast with its virgin white; for it is gay with innumerable brilliant, not to say gaudy, hues, red, brown, crimson, yellow, pink, purple, black, and

scarlet. The polyanthus, the primrose (not the evening primrose, a very different flower), and the cowslip (not our meadow cowslip, which is no cowslip at all, but a Caltha or marsh-marigold), — these three, we say, are plants very nearly akin, being all closely allied members of the genus Primula. The auricula is of the same race, and the most beautiful, but, in the latitude of Boston, not so easy of cultivation as a border-flower. It usually bears the winter; but the hot, dry summer withers it away. Indeed, moisture is the great need of all the family. A damp border, under a north wall, is a good place for them. Plant them in a light soil mixed with rotten leaves and very old manure, cover them thinly with dry leaves or coarse hay in winter, and in the spring they will give you abundant flowers, rising in bright trusses eight or ten inches from the soft green of the tufted foliage. After they have done their blooming, you may divide them; and thus, in a few years, you may multiply them indefinitely. Or you may choose the best, remove them while in bloom with a ball of earth about the roots, plant them apart from the inferior sorts, and save the seed, from which good varieties will be sure to spring.

The polyanthus and auricuļa are the pride of the family. The primrose and cowslip are in less esteem; though the yellow primrose is, to our thinking, very beautiful. The two first, though very desirable in the border, are pre-eminently "florist flowers ;" and those who wish to practise their elaborate culture in pots will find good directions, in the books of Hogg and Glenny, on the treatment of this class of plants.

May 2.- Polemonium reptans.—This is a species of the plant commonly known as "Jacob's-ladder." It is of a dwarf growth and creeping habit. The flowers are bright blue, and it will grow anywhere. Chelidonium diphylla. A plant with succulent leaves and a yellow flower, not devoid of beauty. Phlox subulata. This is the well-known moss-pink, whose innumerable flowers of pink, rose, and white, overspread the garden borders at this season with their rich masses of color. Nothing is easier of cultivation. It asks little but to be let alone. The white variety, with a pink spot in the centre, is, perhaps, the prettiest. Phlox divaricata. This is of taller growth, with clusters of flowers of a porcelain-blue. It commonly blooms a little later than the other.

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Spiræa alpina.-A graceful little shrub, not among the most conspicuous of its race: its best quality is its earliness.

nial, with clusters of whitish flowers of a singular shape and considerable beauty.

May 10.- Spiræa prunifolia. - Few shrubs are finer than this, or so fine, when it is in its perfection. Its long, slender shoots are thickly set with innumerable white flowers, like miniature roses. It rarely suffers from the winter and its foliage in the autumn is scarcely less beautiful than its flowers in the spring; for its small shining leaves are painted throughout

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with a vivid red and purple. Spiraea Niundertii is much less known, but is not inferior, at least in its blooming season. Its pliant shoots, bending with the weight of their clustering white flowers, look as if bowed under a load of freshly-fallen snow. It is only in plants well established, and developed by several years' growth, that the beauty of this spirea becomes fully apparent; for the individual flowers are smaller than those of several other varieties. Spirea ulmifolia very soon follows, a fine robust sort, of the hardiest constitution, and great vigor of growth. The flowers are in large white clusters, and very ornamental. Caragana speciosa is a shrub of a very different race, with drooping, pea-shaped flowers of a bright yellow. Its early bloom makes it desirable.

Uvularia grandiflora is a native perennial of no little beauty, with yellow, drooping flowers. The large native Convallaria, Solomon's-seal, with its pendent flowers of green and white, is also well worth a place at the back of the flower-bed, where, in a rich, moist soil, it becomes a much finer plant than in its wild state. The Actaas, also natives, are beginning to bloom; but they are most striking when in fruit, with their shining berries, white and coral-red.

May 11.- Prunus sinensis. — The double variety of this shrub is of rather recent introduction, and is of the greatest beauty. It is much like the double-flowering almond, which blooms at about the same time, except that the flowers, instead of being pink, are of the purest white. Like the double almond, it is of dwarf growth, and should be in every collection of shrubs. It proves hardy enough here. Occasionally some of its branches have been killed back; but it usually survives the winter uninjured. Its worst enemy is the borer, which now and then attacks it. The double Chinese cherry is a fine flowering tree, and its blossoms lose nothing by close examination. The double apples, red and white, when well pruned, are also beautiful trees at this season; and the Japanese double crab, covered with legions of pendent flowers, is one of the finest objects in its way that can be conceived. It is still rare.

May 13. The Tartarian honeysuckles begin to open their flowers. Next to the weigelias, these old and well-known shrubs are, perhaps, held most in esteem. The red and the white varieties are familiar enough to most people; but there is a much rarer sort, which seems, however, to be but a seedling variety of the old species. This is variously known in catalogues as Lonicera Tartarica grandiflora, — the large-flowered Tartarian; or Lonicera speciosa, the showy Tartarian. It is far handsomer than the others; for not only are the flowers much larger, but they are much more vivid in color. They are of a deep rosy-red, often striped and edged with white. No shrub is more beautiful when in full flower; and, as with the other Tartarians, its management is of the simplest.

Another admirable shrub, less known than it deserves to be, is the "wayfaring tree," Viburnum lantana, -just now, May 16, coming into bloom. It has large leaves, deep green above, and whitish beneath; and at the end of every shoot opens a broad, circular head of flowers like those of its kindred, the laurustinus. Unlike that plant, however, it is perfectly hardy; and though it will grow in time to a small tree, if allowed to do so, it may easily be kept within any desired bounds by pruning it just after blooming.

As May advances, flowers open so thick and fast, that to record them all would be a work of space and time beyond our allotment; and one must pause to make a selection. There is one, at least, in bloom for the