derfully made. He knows its name and nature, and classification, and sees as much to admire in the little clover, or any other simple plant, as in the monarch of the forest, and al lows nothing to be called a weed.

"CONSIDER THE LILIES," was the advice | ple plant, because it is so curiously and wongiven a good many years ago by one whose words of love and wisdom have echoed down the ages. Consider well the Lilies and be astonished, for they are wonderfully made. Their growth seems like a perpetual miracle. We place the scaly bulb in the earth, bury it in the ground, in the hope of a resurrection by and by. We have faith to believe that it will come forth in its own good time, in new and beautiful robes. We plant in earth and darkness, and in faith and hope wait for the morning. After days and weeks, and perhaps months, of waiting, when hope almost gives place to fear, we see the delicate shoot piercing the surface of the earth, in search of light and air. As it ascends, slowly and steadily, leaf after leaf unfolds, forming a stately column more beautiful than man ever conceived. In due time this column is adorned by a floral crown, filling the air with fragrance, and charming the beholder with its matchless beauty, and then we know that "Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these," for earth, air, and sunshine, are moulded into forms of loveliness and the dew-drops crystalized into gems of beauty.

Many, we fear, who admire the beautiful flowers do not fully enjoy the feast prepared for them, because they do not consider-do not give any thought to the wonderful way in which plants grow. The botanist loves the most sim

We have endeavored to increase the love for nature, by teaching in a plain way the philosophy of vegetation, and are glad to know that in many schools and villages little botanical associations are formed for the study of our native plants, and that some good work has already been done. We shall at all times be ready to publish brief reports of the doings of these associations, as far as our space will admit, and would be only too glad to join some of the excursions into the woods and fields, for recreation and study. In response to a communication received from a committe of a botanical club, who are anxious to receive information about water plants, in our next we will describe and illustrate some of the most deserving. In ten or twenty years, when the young people who are spending their leisure time in studying the laws of nature, instead of riding and carousing, and hunting and dressing, and frollicking, grow up to be men and women and take their places in the busy world, we want to be here publishing a Floral Magazine, and what a work we will be able to make, and what a host of appreciative readers we shall have!

FLORIDA.

can see, far through the tangled thickets, the

gleaming water out of which rise thousands of Cypress knees,' looking exactly like so many champagne bottles set into the current to cool. The heron and the crane saucily watch the shadow which the approaching boat throws near their retreat."

One of our own correspondents, at Osceola, Fla., writes: "After an absence of half a lifetime, I am once more in Florida. In Novem

The

schooner, to the wharf at Jacksonville. It was a miserable, raw, blustering day, cruelly belying all the promises of balmy airs' that the Sunny South' had held out. Very much such a day was the 10th of November, 1878, when I returned. But only the dismal weather and the glorious river were the same. miserable, straggling, rowdy village had become a handsome, well-ordered city of ten or twelve thousand inhabitants; with a business street composed of numerous blocks of handsome stores; with several excellent and well-appointed hotels, and with handsome churches for all the leading denominations.

Florida has been called the American Italy. | archs. When the steamer nears the shore, one It lies in the latitude of the desert of Sahara and northern Hindostan, yet its heat is not oppressive, being tempered by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Stream. Over its level breadth of nearly one hundred miles, blow the mild ocean breezes which make this territory the haven of the invalid, fleeing for health and life from the rigors of a northern climate. Here many see, for the first time, with wonder, tropical, or semi-tropical vegetation, the Palmetto, the Palm, the Orange, the Man-ber, 1839, I sailed up the St. John's river, in a grove, the Spanish Moss, and its glorious sunsets. How strange it seems, to be transported in a few days from our northern January zeroweather to a climate where the thermometer reaches eighty almost every day, and seldom goes below seventy; to pass from the cold, sterile landscape and leafless trees to the strange scenery and grand foliage of a tropical climate. A correspondent of Scribner's Magazine thus speaks of the country, " Imagine yourself transferred from the trying climate of the north or northwest into the gentle atmosphere of the Floridian peninsula, and seated just at sunset in an arm chair, on some of the verandas which overlook the pretty square in Jacksonville. Your face is fanned by the warm December breeze, and the chippering of the birds mingles with the music which the negro band is playing in yonder portico. Here beauty peeps from every door-yard. Mere existence is a pleasure; exertion is a bore. Through orange-trees, and grand oaks thickly bordering the broad avenues, gleams the wide current of the St. John's river. "The banks of the rivers are low and flat, but bordered with a wealth of exquisite foliage to be seen nowhere else upon this continent. One passes for hundreds of miles through a grand forest of Cypresses robed in moss and Mistletoe; of Palms towering gracefully far above the surrounding trees; of Palmettos whose rich trunks gleam in the sun; of swamp, white and black Ash, of Magnolia, of WaterOak, of Poplar, and of Flane-Tree; and, where hummocks rise a few feet above the water-level, the sweet Bay, the Olive, the Cotton-Tree, the Juniper, the Red Cedar, the sweet Gum, the Live-Oak, shoot up their splendid stems; while among the shrubbery and inferior growths, one may note the Azalea, the Sumach, the Sensitive-tiful flowers-a few late ones-charming to Plant, the Agave, the Poppy, the Mallow and the Nettle. The vines run not in these thickets, but over them. The Fox-Grape clambers along the branches, and the Woodbine and Bignonia escalade the haughtiest forest mon

"

The streets of Jacksonville are shaded by great Water-Oaks, forming magnificent avenues | and rendered still more venerable in appearance by their gray beards and flowing locks of the long moss. The Orange trees were loaded with fruit- golden lamps in a green shade'— but it was not yet ripe, though eatable. The Florida oranges are large, smooth, solid, juicy, and the best of them very sweet when fully ripe; but in general the rind lacks the fine color and the fragrance that add so much to the quali ties of the Havana orange. I saw a curious thing in my host's garden-the whole crop of a tree standing near the house had been devoured by rats! The robbers had been seen jumping into the tree from the roof of the bay window. several oranges were hanging with the inside partly eaten out, and one had been tunneled by an engineer, who went in at one side and out at the other, or by two who entered from opposite sides. One single fruit had escaped, by growing at the end of a long, slender twig, out of the reach of the frugiverous rodents. Besides the beautiful fruit there were also beau

northern eyes at such a season; Roses, Oleanders, Lantanas, and other familiar garden favorites, and a curious white Lily, of a sort of umbelliferous growth."

FLORENCE M. HULETT, of St. Augustine,