LONDON PRIDE is looked down upon by the grand gardeners and sublime botanists, but it is one of the loveliest plants in the world, and one of the most thrifty. The young microscopist may be advised to grow a patch of it in order to obtain stamens, and pollen grains, and slices of leaf-tissue for pleasant work in the cool of the morning.

"In the summer-time, when The bright May-buds are a-winking, And the cuckoo's sweet hiccuping down in the glen

Tells of the dew he's been drinking."

Let the plant have a place in the garden--that is the point we are anxious about, because it is so common and cheap, and unwilling to give trouble, that your oligarchs of orchids, and fantastic fanciers of fine foliage plants, and affected florists who are still in their apprenticeship in the world of taste, will fling it incontinently to the rubbish-heap, unless it is fenced round with a chevaux de frise. The latest standard work on hardy herbaceous plants does not even mention it. In our very last walk through smoky Manchester to judge, for the twentieth time, the grand plants that are exhibited in the Botanical Gardens there at the famous Whitsun Show, we stopped to admire the dense green cheerful cushions of London pride in the little front gardens, of which there are many, in the Stretford Road; but we trembled as we peeped into the humble gardens, lest any of our orchid-growing friends should catch us tasting of such a pleasure as the sight of healthy and elegant vegetation that cost the owner nothing in money and was worth anything in the way of love.

And why is it called London pride? Thereby hangs a tale. The name is modern, as may be proved by reference to Parkinson's "Paradisus," where, he describes the "speckled sweet williams, or London pride." This, of course, is a dianthus of the kind now known as sweet william, and easy to be discovered wherever these flowers are grown in any quantity. It has brown or purple leaves, and flowers of variable colours. Parkinson thus describes them:--"Some flowers will be of a fine delayed red, with few marks or spots upon them, and others will be full-speckled or sprinkled with white or silver spots circlewise about the middle of the flowers, and some will have many specks or spots upon them dispersed." Everybody who grows sweet williams will know the kind of plant Parkinson describes as the London pride of the old gardeners.

For a hint of the truth in respect of the plant before us we are indebted to Dr. Prior's "Popular Names of British Plants." He says:--"It is understood, upon apparently good authority--that of Mr. R. Howard, in the Gardener's Chronicle--to have been given to this latter plant (Saxifraga umbrosa) in reference to the person who introduced it into cultivation, Mr. London, of the firm of London and Wise, the celebrated royal gardeners of the early part of the last century." It should therefore be designated London's pride, from the name of the raiser, as one of the finest bedding geraniums was called Hibberd's pet by the same rule.

This saxifrage is very accommodating, for it will grow almost anywhere. But it is a fine rockery plant when allowed to form large clumps and tumble over ledges in a half-wild sort of way. As it is, in an especial sense of the word, a town plant, we give the names of a few other good rockery plants that smoke and poor soil do not soon injure, which may grow with it:--White Arabis (Arabis albida), Yellow Alyssum (Alyssum saxatile), Alpine Columbine (Aquilegia alpina), Yellow Rocket (Erysimum ochroleucum), Tufted Harebell (Campanula coespitosa), Large-flowered Mouse-Ear (Cerastium grandiflorum), Plumy Dielytra (Dicentra eximia), Alpine Erinus (Erinus alpinus), Red and White Hepatica (Hepatica triloba), Blue Hepatica (H. angulosa), Evergreen Candytuft (Iberis sempervirens), Coris-leaved Candytuft (I. corifolia), Prostrate Phlox (Phlox subuluta), Creeping Phlox (P. reptans), Rock Soapwort (Saponaria ocymoides), Opposite-leaved Saxifrage (Saxifraga oppositifolia), London Pride (S. umbrosa), Mossy Saxifrage (S. muscoides and S. hypnoides), Spanish Stonecrop (Sedum hispanicum), Common Stonecrop (S. acre), Siebold's Stonecrop (S. Sieboldi), Showy Stonecrop (S. spectabile), Beautiful Stonecrop (S. pulchellum), Common Houseleek (Sempervivum tectorum), Rock Veronica (Veronica saxatilis), Common Sunrose (Helianthemum vulgare), Major Thrift (Armeria cephalotes), Mountain Vetch (Anthyllis montana), Crimson Storksbill (Geranium sanguineum), Woodland Forget-me-Not (Myosotis sylvatica), Woolly Thyme (Thymus lanuginosa).