ELL-FLOWERS so abound that it tries one's patience to hear from the evolutionists that they are late creations, the production of blue flowers being the result of long-continued effort on the part of Nature, whose chief objects in these matters appear to be to astonish man and delight the honey-bees. As the evolutionists profess to know everything, it is dangerous to dispute with them; the safe way appears to be to listen, to consider, to submit their theories to the test of observation and reflection, and to wait patiently for a view of things that may appear compatible with reason. Blue flowers came late, they say, for blue is the most difficult colour for Nature to produce. Some day, perhaps, they will tell us what new flowers are now in process of production; so that our descendants ages hence may know what to look for, and also to what kind of proof to subject the theories now propounded.

The broad bell-flower is variously catalogued as Campanula grandiflora and Platycodon grandiflorum; it has also been classed as a Wahlenbergia. Being a native of Siberia and Chinese Tartary, it will, as a matter of course, be regarded as a hardy plant; and it is a hardy plant, and yet rather troublesome at times by its peculiar sensibilities. It has fleshy roots, which are very brittle. When growing freely, it rises twenty to thirty inches, the leaves rather long, the flowers in a prolonged cluster, large, cup-shaped, of a deep blue colour, and with a shining satiny surface, that renders them at once distinct and attractive. We have occasionally, when our plants were extra strong, found the flowers to measure three inches across, but two inches is the average in the case of plants growing under common-place conditions. In character and colour this is certainly one of the finest of the campanulas, and the lover of hardy plants should give no rest to the soles of his feet or the palms of his hands until he has mastered every detail of its cultivation.

"Every detail" may suggest that an elaborate code of management is to follow. The management is, however, simple enough. This plant requires a deep sandy soil and a sheltered situation. As remarked above, it is hardy, but peculiar. It is, in fact, hardy in precisely the same degree as the lovely Dielytra spectabilis, which is a proper companion plant to this campanula. Give them both a deep sandy soil, rather moist, but effectually sheltered, and you have done enough: the plants will thrive. But if the bleak winds of March can chafe and tear such plants as these, they are but too likely to be damaged for the season. When making their new growth in spring they are a little tender, suggesting to us that, although Nature has scattered them in northern climes, she has provided them with shelter, in the shape of hills and woods and waters--these three being the principal agents in the modification of climates. Put these plants on an open plain, exposed to "a' the airts," and they will be blown away, no man knoweth whither; put them in a sheltered nook, and they will remain to give gladness to all who behold them in their flowery prime.

On the cold clay land it has been our privilege to delve and decorate, the two plants we have for present purposes linked together have given us some trifling trouble. The pretty Astilbe Japonica, which is perfectly hardy south of London, may come into the same category. Indeed, we might make a long catalogue of first-class hardy plants that are unequal to the trials of spring weather in the neigh bourhood of London, and that pass into the category of tender plants north of the Trent. There is a way out of every difficulty. In respect of these plants, pot-culture makes all the difference, for the plants so managed have frame and greenhouse shelter so long as the fitful frosts and wayward winds of spring might make havoc of their tender growth; and they are as worthy of pot-culture as any plants known to us.