In the old world, where people study to get as much pleasure out of their gardens as possible, they take special pains to suit the cultural conditions to the wants of the plant. If in our country we were to propose to cultivate those beautiful hardy pitcher plants, which are the pride and glory of our swamps, the answer would probably be: "We have no swamp." But the amateur Englishman makes his swamp, and grows his plants accordingly; and intelligent Americans have to go to the old world in order to learn how much interest may be found in plants natural to their own wilds. This is particularly true of that remarkable genus of plants known as the Sarracenia or pitcher plant. S. purpurea is so hardy that it is found far away to the north, and many of the others are nearly as hardy.

In England the demand for them is so good, that one leading firm, Messrs. Veitch & Son, has been led to work on their improvement, and the one we now figure is a hybrid raised by them, and which they have named after a very estimable gentleman, well known as their traveling representative on this side of the Atlantic. We give the following account of it in Messrs. Veitch's own words:

"It was raised at our Chelsea nursery from S. purpurea and S. psittacina, the last-named being the pollen parent. Like those of both parents, the pitchers are procumbent, but more symmetrically disposed than in either, radiating from all sides of the root stock as regularly as the leaves of a rosette. In form and size, they are well nigh intermediate between those of the two parents; the petiolar tube, which is much contracted at the base, gradually dilates upwards to the aperture ; the lamina or flap is turned upwards and terminates abruptly, having neither the parrot-like head of S. psittacina, nor the crisped flap of S. purpurea; the wing is deep, curved above, gradually contracting towards both extremities. In color, this hybrid is one of the finest yet obtained ; the young pitchers are bright crimson-purple from the middle upwards, veined and reticulated with deep crimson-purple. They change with age to a deep blood-red with blackish purple veins, the reticulations being particularly handsome and striking.

"The elegant habit of the plant and its rich coloration, render it one of the most ornamental of Sarracenias. It has received a first-class certi-tificate from the Royal Horticultural Society (unanimous vote), and a certificate of merit from the Royal Botanic Society".