"JESSAMINE" may be almost any flower in existence, especially as applied by some people, if it be sweet-scented. In literature it has become almost as popular and as general a term as "myrtle" and "ivy." Nobody knows what a literary " ivy " may be, whether an am-pelopsis, a hedera or a linaria. It is supposed to combine all such desirable qualities as constancy, beauty, grace and delicate tenderness, and in the meanwhile to keep up a vigorous clinging to the "sturdy oak." The literary term "myrtle" may apply to a variety of plants equally at home in a cemetery or on the poet's brow, and it has come to be that wherever there is a cottage containing a pretty girl that somebody is in love with, there a "jessamine" is placed. Even the florists' catalogues, which should be public instructors, in many cases hopelessly muddle jessamines, gardenias, ces-trums and other plants. First, there are the gardenias, popularly known as "Cape jessamines," though the name is a misnomer, the common species, G.florida, having been introduced, it is said, from China in 1754, and named in honor of Dr. Alexander Garden, of Charleston, S. C. This species is well known everywhere.

At the South it has been popular for years, as it is perfectly hardy throughout the lower Southern States ; at the North, though long cultivated, it has suddenly become popular on account of the whims of metropolitan florists. Its popularity, however, is for once well deserved. Other species of gardenia are not so well known, though G. radicans is sometimes seen. Other fine species and varieties arc G. Thunbergii, G. lu-cida, G. ciltiodora, G. camelliflora, etc. Randia flor-ibunda is a closely related Indian plant, which is said to be well worthy of cultivation. It succeeds well in the open ground in South Florida.

The centrums and a kindred genus, habrothatn-nus, are also often confounded with the jessamines. Cestrum nocturnum is the most common sort, and is usually known as "night-blooming jessamine." It is a coarse, quick-growing shrub, but when in bloom it exhales a most delightful fragrance in the night. The flowers are produced in the greatest profusion, and the shrub quickly attains a height of fifteen or more feet in the open ground in Florida or the West Indies. C. Parqui is also quite well known. C. laurifolium is a beautiful West Indian species which opens in the day-time. The delicate white flowers are very fragrant, and almost equal to heliotrope for some sorts of cut-flower work. The species of habrothamnus are quite numerous and well known in greenhouses, but they are not so often bundled in with the jessamines. Gelsemiutn semper-virens, the so-called "Carolina yellow jessamine," is a plant worthy of especial attention. It is found in every hammock and on every rail-fence from the Carolinas to South Florida, and a more beautiful and delicate climber does not exist.

Evergreen, with glossy, shining, dark-green foliage, and in February and March covering every branch of myrica and persea and gordonia, and clumps of palmetto, with sprays and wreaths of the sweetest golden-yellow bells, often breaking into perfect sheets of color. The gelsemium should be seen in its native hammocks to be appreciated. 1 have no doubt, however, that it could be forced under glass at almost any time. A double-flowered variety, first introduced by P. J. Berckmans, is worthy of a place in any collection of plants.

Closely related to the true jessamines is Nyctanthes arbor-tristis; the "Tree of Sadness." This plant is a great favorite in the gardens of India, of which country it is a native. The beautiful, small white flowers, faintly tinged with orange, are open only through the night and early morning, but the perfume is so exquisite that the tree has been recommended as of value for scent distillation. The shrub is perfectly at home in South Florida, and commences to flower the second summer from the seed or cutting.

Many sorts of the true jessamines (jasminum) are universal favorites. Perhaps the most common is Jasminum grandiflorum, known as the "Catalo-nian" jessamine or "Star" jessamine (though the "stars" in the jessamine family are as plentiful as the "Johns" in the Smith household). The plant is half shrubby, half climbing, and is almost always covered with its fragrant pinkish-white flowers. Another favorite is the "Arabian" jessamine (Jasminum Sambac). This is a climbing species with simple leaves (the leaves of the "Catalonian" and of most other species are compound), and single, semi-double or double white flowers, very fragrant as are those of all the species of the genus. This species and the preceding will stand but a very light frost unharmed. The variety Grand Duke of Tuscany seems to belong, botanically, to this species of the genus jasminum, It is, however, not a climber, but of low, shrubby growth, and produces very double flowers, often to the extent of deformity, which are perhaps more fragrant than those of any other of the species or variety.

They are larger, too, than those of the common varieties of the Arabian jessamine.

Jasminum multiflorum has formally been pronounced by a leading Florida nurseryman "the finest flowering plant for South Florida," and it is a beautiful plant, but hardly equal, I think, to the newer Jasminum gracillimum, which, well grown in the open ground in Florida in late summer and fall is a "sight never to be forgotten." The great sprays of white flowers and delicate green leaves are only fit for "bridal wreaths," which indeed they are, without artificial arrangement.

But there are said to be 60 or more species of the genus jasminum, and some of them are hardy even in the Northern States. The flowers are usually white or yellow, and I can only mention the names of other better known species, such as J. officinale, odoratissimum, paniculatum, angustifolium, nervo-sum, floribundum, hirsutum, humile, noctiflorum, frutitans, nudiflorum, revolutum. Many of these are highly prized and largely grown for their perfume along the Mediterranean.

I have known, in Tampa and elsewhere, the unique little plant, Triphasia trifoliata (allied to the citrus), to be called "Orange Jessamine," and in Key West the great bare-stemmed bouquet-laden "frangipanni" (plumieria) are called "Coffee Jessamines," for no better reason that I can see than that they do not in the least resemble either coffee plants or jessamines. They will probably be known, however, under that name until Ampelopsis quin-quefolia shall be no longer known as an "ivy" in parts of the United States, or until some of our leading florists quit selling the weak-kneed little Linaria cymbalaria under such a misnomer as "Ken-ilworth Ivy".

P. W. Reasoner.

Manatee, Fla., Dec. 2, 1887 .