UNDER the name Geum coccineum, is figured the scarlet avens of Chili, which Sweet, in his "British Flower Garden," labelled Geum quellyon, and which is otherwise known as G. Chiloense. The plant now figured bears the name (apparently without any sufficient authority) of Geum sylvaticum, under which appellation it is ranked here, to separate it, as a garden plant, from the other, of which it is in truth a mere variety, though one of great beauty. It differs in this more particularly that G. coccineum has the upper joint of the style glabrous, while in the G. sylvaticum it is hispid. As a garden plant, therefore, it may with propriety be labelled G. coccineum, and will be found as valuable for the rockery as the more typical form to which reference has been made.

A very fine mountain avens has been lately introduced to public notice in the Botanical Magazine. It is a native of the Himalaya Mountains, and bears the name Geum elatum. In general character it approaches the beautiful Geum montanum, but is far more robust in growth, with very bold, much-cut leaves, and large handsome flowers of a full rich gold-yellow colour. There are many species of geum distributed about the mountains of Europe, Northern Asia, and Northern America, one of them, G. Rossi, running very far north, so as to form a feature of Arctic vegetation. The best known of the American species are G. triflorum, the three-flowered avens, and G. Pecki. On the Alps of Europe a handsome yellow avens, known as G. reptans, occurs, and is characterised by all the proper characters of an Alpine plant-a close growth, and large handsome flowers. Returning to the Himalaya, it is proper to observe that the robust G. elatum is, in the colder regions of Sikkim, replaced by a dwarf species, called G. humile, which ranks with G. reptans in its strikingly Alpine character.

This avens, and the scarlet variety referred to above, are particularly valuable as garden flowers by reason of their earliness and their long continuance in flowering. And there is yet a third variety, named Geum coccineum flore pleno, with semi-double flowers of a most showy character, but which, nevertheless, in common with the single forms, produces an abundance of seed. If sown as soon as ripe, the seedling plants acquire considerable strength before winter assails them, and flower bravely in the following season. But the seed may be kept over to the spring, and being then sown, there will be a grand bloom in the year following. Treated as biennials, these geums are of great value, and seedling plants should be raised annually to insure a vigorous stock and an abundance of splendid flowers.

In the avens we have an example of a plant that may be said to have modified its character in a variety of ways to adapt itself to the varying conditions of a weed of the world. It is not in this respect unique, for very many examples of a similar modification may be found in every garden, especially where hardy European plants are largely represented. The lowland forms of such genera are leafy and liberal in growth, and their flowers are often diminutive as compared with the size of the plant producing them. On the other hand, the mountain forms are of dwarf growth with smallish leaves, while the flowers are of very large size as compared with the plants, and may be said to be borne boastingly above them, as if to attract the wild bee or butterfly that has dared to sail so high, and that may be starved unless favoured with a special invitation, by banners bravely coloured, to visit the hospitable board. And while the tiny winged creatures are thus attracted to a banquet in the midst of the rocky waste, the flower has the advantage of their visits, as all generous hosts should be benefited in some way by the company they entertain. In searching for the honey in the nectary of the flower, the winged visitor brushes the pollen from the stamens, and some of it adheres to his legs or wings: then when he visits the next flower of the same kind the ripe pollen is deposited where it is wanted, the purpose of the plant is served, and it quickly ripens its seeds and scatters them abroad ere the short sunny Alpine summer has died away.

We talk lightly sometimes of "local colour" in works of art, knowing that no scene can be painted or described with suitable effect except by one who has obtained impressions at first hand on the spot by actual observation. A striking example of this occurs where, perhaps, one might least expect it, in Coleridge's noble "Hymn before Sunrise," wherein the peculiar characteristics of Alpine vegetation are made to contribute to the sublime force of the argument. The poet had in mind the gentian more particularly; but it matters not what flowers were in his thoughts when he wrote thus:-

"Ye ice-falls, ye that from the mountain's brow

Adown enormous ravines slope amain-

Who bade the sun

Clothe you with rainbows? Who with living flowers

Of loveliest blue spread garlands at your feet?

God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,

Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!

God! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice!

Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!

And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,

And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost,

Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest,

Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm,

Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds,

Ye signs and wonders of the elements,