This plant is a native of New South Wales, and is consequently well suited to the temperature and treatment required for most plants that thrive in and beautify our modern British conservatories. It attains to large dimensions, throwing out regular and well-formed shoots and branches, which give it an elegant and graceful appearance. It also flowers freely. Before me is a specimen trained as a standard, about 7 feet high, and 6 feet across, bearing forty spikes of its pretty tassellike red flowers, and about as many more formed, but not yet developed. Each spike measures about 3 1/2 inches in length, and 3 in diameter; and the individual flowers, which are numerous, impart a brilliancy of colour that quickly attracts the eye, and commands the admiration of the beholder. Besides those I have mentioned, the plant has other qualities, which, for the sake of brevity, I shall reduce to three principal features. First, then, it is easily cultivated, requiring no more than ordinary care; 2d, It remains almost free from the attacks of those enemies of vegetable life - insects; 3d, In proportion to its size, it requires a comparatively limited area of matter from which to derive its sustenance; that means, in plain words, that the pot room need not be extensive.

I have known the Metrosideros grow luxuriantly in a compost formed of peat and turfy loam of equal parts, with some white sand added, the usual precautions as to drainage being, of course, attended to. The specimen I have referred to was always - after being placed out of doors for a few weeks in summer - kept in the conservatory, where it now remains in all its summer grandeur the admired of all observers. I shall only add that the subject of these lines merits the attention of all cultivators of this interesting and showy order of plants. R. M.