If, perchance, we should be called upon to suggest a new name for this beautiful climbing vine, it is doubtful if one more appropriate or descriptive than the Wild Festoon, or perhaps the Wood Garland, could be applied. Trailing gracefully over old rail fences and stone walls, or clinging affectionately to twig or branch or wayside shrubbery, the Traveller's Joy bids a welcome return to the prodigal, and God-speed to the journeyman. The word travel really means to toil or labour, and it is quite possible that the name as it is applied to the Virgin's Bower may have been Tra-vailer's Joy from the plant's habit of constant endeavour to work its way, or travail from point to point as it progressed. Accordingly it might have been a cheerful inspiration to labourers, or travellers, who also may have rejoiced in its shade. Virgin's Bower is a name commonly applied to this vine, because of its habit of forming delightful shaded arches and fairy-like castles, wherein maidens would fain dwell. During the fall, when the seed clusters appear with long, curling, feathery, grayish plumes, their fancied resemblance to an Old Man's Beard is sufficient reason for the popular application of this name. The Clematis is a very old favourite with country people, and many a stiff, chromatic oil painting of the Father of our Country is annually decorated with its plumy clusters which are gathered in the fall. The Virgin's Bower is a long, slender, leafy vine, having a round, grooved, and tough, woody fibred, purple stained, green stalk. The small, white or greenish white flowers are imperfect, and the staminate and pistillate blossoms grow on separate plants. They do not possess true petals, but the four or five rounded, oblong, petal-like sepals appear in their stead. The numerous stamens and pistils are light green in colour, and the latter measure an inch in length. The expanded flowers are an inch broad and are delicately fragrant. They are borne on short, slender, green stems, in spreading clusters, at the end of the vine, and from the stalk at the leaf joints. The large, smooth, dark green leaves are set on long stems in pairs and the three, or rarely five, broad, oval, short-stemmed leaflets terminate acutely with long, tapered points. They are slightly indented at the base, and are prominently ribbed. The edge or margin is cut into a few sharp, coarse notches or lobes. During September and October the pistillate flowers are followed with the curled, silky, silvery plumes of withered styles, which are even more attractive than the flowers, and they give the vine its greatest charm of fluffy, festooning drapery. This handsome plant grows about a dozen feet in length and spreads along its ways, groping and clinging by its sensitive leaf stems, which support the vine by hooking on to, or even coiling spirally around whatever happens in their course to afford favourable gripping places. Its favourite haunts are along river banks or moist, damp lanes, and in lowlands about waterways, where it may be found from July to October. It ranges from Georgia to Kansas, northward to Manitoba and Nova Scotia. Clematis is a name of Dioscorides, a Greek medical writer, for a climbing plant with long and lithe branches.