Robinia, commemorates John Robin, botanist to Henry the Fourth, and Louis the Thirteenth, of France. He was found fault with for his selfish love of flowers; the more curious kinds of which, he would rather destroy, than share with his friends. His son, Vespasian Robin, and De Theis, introduced into the French gardens, from American seeds, that species of Robinia, called Pseudo Acacia, by Tournefort; who, under that name, founds the present genus.

Acacia, is an ancient name, (Gr. AKAKIA) derived from the Greek AKE, a point, or AKAZO, to point or sharpen, in reference to its thorny habit.

The Rose Acacia, R. Hispida, or Hairy Robinia, is a native of America, particularly of the mountains of Virginia and Carolina. It is a very ornamental shrub, with copious, large, pink-coloured papilionaceous blossoms, enhanced, like the Moss Rose, by the bristly covering of the stalks and calyx. The leaves pinnate, with an odd leaflet, like the common locust. It has no thorns. There is a taller, and less hisped variety.

The Pseudo Acacia, or common locust, is also a native of North America, from Canada to Carolina: and, in the months of May and June, it is laden with bunches of white sweet-scented flowers, resembling those of the laburnum in size and position. The foliage is of a beautiful light green, consisting of many elliptical, opposite or alternate, stalked leaflets. It is a large and handsome tree, of quick growth; beginning, from the third year, to convert its sap into perfect wood, which is of so fine a grain, and so hard, as to be substituted by turners for the box, in many sorts of light work. The branches are liable to be shivered off by autumnal storms.

There is a very thorny species of Robinia, with yellow flowers, a native of Siberia, as also of Pekin, in China: in the latter place, it is frequently fixed with clay on the tops of walls, to keep off intruders. This R. Spinosa, or Thorny Robinia, is a shrub, much branched, and with long thorns, formed by the hardened foot-stalks. It is quite hardy in our gardens, and would be excellent for hedges. The leaflets are oblong, wedge-shaped, hardly an inch in length.

The Oriental Acacia, from which our green-houses are furnished, is of a different class and order from the Robinia, being Polygamia Monacia; or, perhaps, Polyandria Monogynia. Natural order, Lomentace, Linn. Leguminosa, Juss. The flowers have

the appearance of small tufts; some of the species very fragrant. The foliage presents great variety in the form of the leaf, and manner of its growth. And some of them have the sensitive properties of the Mimosa.

The Acacia Vera, or Mimosa Nilotica, a tree that grows abundantly on the sandy soil of Egypt and Arabia, furnishes the Gum-Arabic, a pure concrete mucilage, which exudes, spontaneously, in a liquid state, from the trunk and boughs, and hardens by contact with the air, and heat of the sun incisions are sometimes made through the bark, to assist the transudation of the juice.

The Acacia Arabica, or East-Indian Gum-Arabic tree, besides yielding this wholesome mucilage, is one of the most useful trees in India, for its tough and hard wood, serving many valuable purposes in ship building, &c. the bark is used for dying, and making ink.

Moore, in his "Light of the Harem," has noticed the Oriental Acacia, in these beautiful lines:

"Our sands are bare, but smiling there

Th' Acacia waves her yellow hair.
Lonely and sweet, nor lov'd the less
For flowering in a wilderness.

That this flower owes its name to the favourite of Venus, is not to be disputed; but whether the Goddess of Beauty changed her lover into this plant, or the Anemone, would be difficult to decide, since the Linnæan system of dividing plants into families, did not exist when the Gods and Goddesses made love upon earth and previous to the time of the Swedish botanist, the Adonis was considered to be one of the Anemonies, which it greatly resembles, and is of the same class and order.

Flos (L) a flower, a bloom, a blossom.

Look, in the garden, blooms the Flos Adonis,
And memory keeps of him who rashly died,
Thereafter changed by Venus, weeping, to this flower.
Anonymous. Garland of Flora.

Ovid certainly designates the Anemone, as being the subject of this metamorphosis:

"Then on the blood, sweet nectar she bestows,

The scented blood in little bubbles rose:

Little as rainy drops, which fluttering fly,

Borne by the winds along a low'ring sky.
Short time ensu'd, till where the blood was shed,
A flower began to rear its purple head:
Such as on punic apples is reveal'd,
Or in the filmy rind but half conceal'd.

Still here the fate of lovely forms we see, So sudden fades the sweet Anemone. The feeble stems, to stormy blasts a prey, Their sickly beauties droop and pine away, The winds forbid the flow'rs to flourish long, Which owe to winds their names in Grecian song." Eusden's Ovid. Great quantities of the Adonis Autumnalis are annually carried to the London market, and sold by the name of Red Morocco and Pheasant's Eye. And, in the time of Gerard, (a surgeon, and famous herbalist in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, chief gardener to William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, who was himself a great lover of plants, and had the best collection of any nobleman in the kingdom,) the country people called it "Red Camomile"-the London women, "Rosearubie." It is an annual, flowering from May to October. Its characters are, that the calyx is a five-leaved periantheum, and the leaflets are obtuse, concave, a little coloured and deciduous; the corolla has from five to fifteen, but most commonly eight, oblong, obtuse, shining, petals. The stamina consist of very short filaments, and the antheræ are oblong and inflex: the pistulum has numerous germs collected in a head, no styles, and acute reflex stigmas: no pericarpium; an oblong, spiked receptacle seeds numerous, irregular, angular.

Amygdalus, in gardening, applies to the Almond, Peach, and Nectarine trees.

Amygdala, Latin for an Almond tree. Gr. Amugdalon
Amygdaline, English, resembling almonds.

Almond, (English) Almendra, (Spanish) Amande, (French) derived by Menage from amandala, a word in low Latin-see Johnson.

The Almond is the earliest tree that puts forth its blossoms in Syria, and is hence regarded as the emblem and promise of a fruitful season: its snow-white blossoms appear on the bare branches, unaccompanied by leaves.

"Mark well the flowering almond in the wood;
If odorous blooms the bearing branches load,
The glebe will answer to the sylvan reign,
Great heats will follow, and large crops of grain
But, if a wood of leaves o'ershade the tree,
Such, and so barren will the harvest be;
In vain the hind shall vex the threshing floor,
For empty straw and chaff will be thy store."

It is the emblem of Hope:

"The Hope, in dreams of a happier hour That alights on misery's brow,

Springs out of the silvery almond flower, That blooms on a leafless bough."

Dryden's Virgil.

Moore.

We presume that Aaron's rod was taken from the Almond tree:

"And behold, the rod of Aaron, for the house of Levi, was budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds. (Numbers xvii. 8.)

The common almond, A. Communis, has leaves resembling those of the peach, but the lower serratures are glandular; they proceed from buds both above and below the flowers, and not, as in the peach, from the ends of the shoots above, and not below the flowers. The form of the flowers is not very different, but they usually come out in pairs, and vary more in their colour, from the fine blush of the apple-blossom, to a snowy whiteness. The chief obvious distinction is in the fruit, which is flatter, with a coriaceous, or leather-like covering, instead of the rich pulp of the peach and nectarine, opening spontaneously when the kernel is ripe.

It is a native of Barbary-much cultivated in Italy and the south of France. It is common in China, and most of the eastern countries. According to Miller, the A. Communis is cultivated more for the beauty of its flowers than for its fruit; of which there are two varieties, the sweet and the bitter; which often arise from the fruit of the same tree: the fruit is good while fresh, but will not keep long.

It is the fruit of the A. Dulcis, or Jordan A., which is preferred in commerce. This has a tender shell, and a large sweet kernel. The leaves are broader, shorter, and grow much closer than those of the common sort, and their edges are crenate. The flowers are very small, and of a pale colour, inclining to white. The trees have been often raised from the nut, which is imported.

The A. Pumila, double-flowering dwarf-almond, is a shrub of two or three feet high, smooth branches, and dark purple. Leaves veined-wrinkled, or lanceolated, and double serrated. Flowers, generally two in a bud and sessile. Calyx reddish; petals emarginate, red, longer than the tube of the calyx: filaments paler; germ and style pubescent at bottom; stipules linear and very deeply serrate. Its native country Africa.

Hibiscus, a name given by Linnæus to designate a genus of the Mallow tribe, which had hitherto received only barbarous, or illconstructed appellations.

The Greek word IBISKOS, from which it is derived, is translated "a species of wild or woodland Mallow-Althea."

Althea-Greek ALTHAIA, from the Gr. ALTHO, or ALTHAINO, to heal, a remedy, from its many excellent qualities. The A. Officinalis, common Marsh Mallow, a perennial plant of about three feet high; the whole herb clothed with a very soft wool or velvet; purple flowers; leaves simple, undivided, angular, and cottony, alternate, serrated: is a native of temperate climes, and has been used medicinally in all countries.

The Hibiscus Syriacus, popularly called Althea frutex, is a native of Syria, Carniola, America, &c. a hardy shrub in our gardens, growing to the height of a small tree; leaves ovate, somewhat wedge-shaped, three-lobed, cut, smooth; calyx double, the outer permanent, consisting of about eight leaves, as long as the inner; the blossoms are handsome, rose coloured, with a crimson eye liable to variations in colour, and sometimes double; scentless. It is, perhaps, the last shrub that comes into leaf with us, and one of the latest flowering.

The most splendid species noticed, are H. Speciosus, of South Carolina, with large, wide-spread, bright crimson flowers. The West Indian H. Manihot, with equally large sulphur-yellow blossoms. And the Chinese, H. Rosa-sinensis, a tender shrub, with scarlet, purple, and yellow, single, and double flowers of peculiar elegance.

The fable of Althea and her unfortunate son, being read in my hearing, at the time that the shrub Althea was in bloom, and finding that it had been overlooked in the assemblage of speaking flowers, I determined to introduce it, if possible, and the fate of the poor youth who had lost his life, in consequence of his love for the beautiful nymph Atalanta-his consuming away, as the fatal brand was burned-by the power of association, suggested the emblem of "Consumed by Love."