THIS plant is usually labelled Calla AEthiopica, and there is no impropriety in classing it as a calla; on the contrary, it is well to embrace any and every opportunity of protesting against the vicious use of commemorative names that is now becoming common with botanists who are too idle to diagnose, while over busy in "dedications". But no matter: "a rose by any other name will smell as sweet," and the arum lily is a glorious plant that should be grown wherever suitable accommodation can be provided for it. Being an arum, it is not a lily; but there is no lily, however beautiful, that can be said to surpass it in elegance of form or in the purity of its ivory-white chalice, folded in curves that seem to mock the genius of the greatest of artists.

There is not in the world a more accommodating plant than this, provided solely that it be protected from frost in winter. A hardy plant it is not, and many a one has lived through two or three mild winters on the margin of a pond or stream, only to perish and leave no trace of its existence when a sharp winter has come and put it to the proof of extreme endurance. The arum lily is a greenhouse plant, half-aquatic in habit, yet bearing to be dried up in summer, as though water were the last of its necessities. But the drying-up is not good practice, for it results in the production of small flowers; whereas, if the plant be kept moist all the summer through, it will in spring produce large flowers, and a greater number of them than is possible in the case of plants that are forgotten, as many are from the moment they have ceased to be attractive.

Being a most accommodating plant, it may be grown in a variety of ways. As a pot-plant for the greenhouse, it may be easily managed to make its best display at Easter, when for decorative purposes its lovely spathes or flowers are invaluable. Any kind of greenhouse that is light, and safe against frost, will serve for wintering the stock; and the time of flowering will be very much in the determination of the cultivator, for by raising the temperature as the days lengthen the plant will respond, and produce its flowers before the usual time. It may happen that when forced a few aphides will appear on the plants. In this case nothing more is needed than simply to brush them off and kill them, for the plant bears handling, and fumigating is quite unnecessary, unless it happens that other plants in the house are in a similar plight, for we cannot remove the insects from all kinds of plants so easily as from the arums.

The routine culture insures to the cultivator a rapid and very considerable increase of stock. It is in its way a profitable business, and demands the fewest and simplest materials. The soil in any case must be rich and strong - say two parts good loam and one part rotten hotbed manure; and there is no need for sand, except when very small offsets are potted. While in free growth the plants should have plenty of water. Every year, after flowering, they should be put out of doors, and kept moderately watered until the leaves die down; then shake them out and re-pot, using only one hollow oyster-shell for drainage, and dividing the plants as may seem best to increase the stock. The more you divide the smaller your plants will be. If, therefore, you want large specimens, you must pot a few without dividing them, and so proceed until they become too large to be manageable, the size in any and every case being determinable by the cultivator, if he will but wait for the plants to fill the pots of the maximum size allowable. It is good practice, as soon as the pot-plants are growing freely, to stand them in pans of water; but one inch or even half an inch depth of water is sufficient. On the subject of pot culture there is really very little more to be said.

A more profitable mode of procedure consists in planting them out as soon as they have flowered, in a piece of rich moist soil, to make free growth during the summer. In the autumn they are lifted, and potted for the winter, and are flowered in the usual way under glass. They are then again planted out, and at the same time divided as may be needful. For general purposes a combination of the two systems may be recommended, as the plants that are grown wholly in pots flower earlier than those that are planted out.

There is a spotted-leaved variety of this arum. It is catalogued as Richardia albo-maculata, and is admirably figured in "Illustration Horticole," 1860,p.35. But no art of man can convey a just idea of the beauty of this variety; a mass of it planted out in a bed constitutes one of the freshest and most impressive of surprises; it is a proper item in "sensational" gardening.