THE ANEMONE.

OUR indigenous Anemones are exceedingly beautiful, though frail and fleeting. The Wood Anemone decks our woods, and hazel copses, and shady groves with its pale-white and simple beauty in the months of March and April; and occasionally we meet with the Yellow Wood Anemone in similar localities in the latter month. The Blue Mountain Anemone is also seen in a few favoured localities, and the Pasqueflower Anemone is found in dry chalky and loamy. pastures, in different parts of England, in April and May. The first of these has been sometimes transferred from its native woods to the domestic garden, where its stamens will occasionally become transformed into petals, and the flower assumes a semidouble form, and continues longer in bloom than the single variety.

How pleasantly do these flowers usher in the joyous season of spring, to which Earl Surrey dedicated this one of his sweetest sonnets :

"The soote season, that bud and bloome forth brings,
With grene hath clad the hill, and eke the vale;
The nightingall, with feathers new, she sings,
The turtle to her mate hath told her tale.
Somer is come; for every spray now springs,
The hart hath hung his old head in the pale,

The buck in brake his winter coat he flings,
The fishes flete with new repayred scale,
The adder all her slough away she flings,

The swallow swift pursueth the flies smale,
The busy bee, her honey now she mings.

Winter is worne, that was the floure's bale;
And thus I see among these pleasant thynges

Eche care decays, and yet my sorrow sprynges."

Our pretty Anemone was, in days of old, known by the poets as Adonis-flower; thus Ben Jonson introduces it under that name :

"Well done, my pretty ones-rain roses still,
Until the last be dropt, then hence, and fill
Your fragrant prickles for a second shower.
Bring corn-flags, tulips, and Adonis-flower."

Our gardens have long been beautified and enriched with spring species of the Anemone from other climes, but within the last few years we have had a valuable addition in an autumnal blooming species, namely, the Japan Anemone, which flowers in September. An admirer writes thus of what he calls a charming acquisition:-"It belongs to that limited class of flowers appropriately designated as 'everybody's,' and as such is the more to be prized. Equally adapted for the greenhouse, the window, and the flower-garden, it addresses itself to every one who loves flowers and possesses a square foot of ground to grow it in. Blooming so late, renders it peculiarly adapted for decoration in plant-houses, as well as for prolonging the beauty of the flower-garden. Its facility of increase by roots must render it universal in a short time. Every one who values a beautiful plant simply for its beauty, and not for its costliness or rarity, should by all means procure Anemone Japonica."

PROPAGATION.-The common garden Anemones, which are chiefly planted in beds prepared in the open ground, produce seeds in great abundance, by which species and varieties are indefinitely multiplied, and new varieties are continually obtained. The new Japan Anemone is propagated by means of root-buds, which will be found particularized in the account of that plant.

BY SEED.-The seed of the Anemone is very likely to be lost when approaching maturity, unless vigilantly looked after, as the wind soon scatters it, if not gathered sufficiently early. It is the practice with some growers to sow the seeds as soon as they are ripe, in a bed of light rich earth, prepared in a thoroughly dry situation. The plants from seeds thus

sown come up immediately, and when they can be laid hold of they should be carefully thinned out, so that those intended to remain may grow more freely. Seedlings thus raised will bloom beautifully in the following spring.

Other cultivators, when they have gathered the seed, keep it in a dry place until the month of January; they then rub it among dry sand so as to separate it from its downy covering, and then sow it in a prepared seed-bed, formed of fresh kindly loam of a good depth, secured against worms by a thick layer of quick-lime at the bottom. A shallow onelight frame is used to protect the seedlings as well before as after germination, indeed up to the time their leaves wither, when the young tubers may be taken up.

AFTER-TREATMENT OF SEEDLINGS.-Seedling Anemones require to be kept rather damp, and they should be inured by degrees to bear full exposure to the air. When the leaves are quite withered the tubers may be taken up. As these are small and dark coloured, much care is necessary in order to find them. When picked up and cleared of earth, they may be kept in a dry cool place until October, when they should be again planted. These young seedling tubers should be planted in a nursing-bed by themselves, as they mostly flower in the second year.

ANEMONE BEDS, AND PLANTING.-The beds for the Anemone may be made about the beginning of October; the soil should be loosened pretty deep, and within eight inches of the surface a substratum of loam and well-rotted cow-dung is laid in, and upon this a surface-layer of lighter loam is placed to receive the tubers; it is well to turn the contents of the bed over frequently, so that the whole of the bed may be submitted successively to the action of the atmosphere. The tubers are planted in drills five inches asunder, and four inches apart from each other in the row, and afterwards covered two inches deep.

TO PROTECT ANEMONE BEDS.-In winter and spring Anemones are liable to be seriously affected by excessive rain, and by snow and frost, and in summer their frail flowers are soon injured by rain and the scorching heat of the sun. Protection becomes, indeed, often absolutely necessary, and it is well to have the means always prepared of sheltering them when needful. A