This marvellously green and open winter has brought into the
open the peculiar charms and usefulness of two fair cousins, Julia and Juliana Gloria. The younger, with the longer name, is the better of the two ; but both have been flowering profusely, and the blue-purple is rarest of colours at this date. In a frame the flowers have been long stemmed and the petals broad and unsullied ; but the out-of-door plants have been as profuse in blossom. It is a curious habit in some plants of the variety, though not most, to flower like the coltsfoot or crocus without leaf. The purple patch close against the soil of a garden bed is perhaps more queer than lovely ; but the Julia cousins give us something that no other flowers give at such date, though all sorts of primrose and primula are still in blossom in spite of the snow. The pair have become necessities, W. BEACH Tnomes.