Strange as this heading may appear to the reader, the flower is nevertheless an entity - a thing that exists, and may be bandied; a plant almost as regular as the swallow in its Sittings to and fro; one that travels many miles annually? and, what is more, a fashionable one - resorting to the seaside during the hottest season, to indulge in a swim among the cool billows of the Mediterranean. The name of this remarkable vegetable phenomenon is Anastatic hieroehuntina among the botanists; the Rom of Jericho with the unlearned.

Very many superstitions are connected with this extraordinary plant in the minds of Bedouins, and other Arab tribes. The ancients attributed miraculous virtues to the Rose of Jericho. Dispensing with the notions of both, however, there remains to us quite a sufficient charm about this apparently insignificant shrub, which seldom attains six inches in height, to apologize for introducing the subject to our readers.

To behold this little rose, it is not necessary to tell you "to go to Jericho;" no such uncomplimentary journey is required. In the arid wastes of Egypt, by the borders of the Gaza desert, in Arabia's wilderness of sands, on the roofs of houses and among rubbish in Syria, abundant specimens are to be met with. But, like many other things of insignificant exterior, few pause to look upon or handle this waysido shrub, which nevertheless carries with it a lesson and a moral.

By the laws of germination, there are, we are told, these three things necessary for a plant-humidity, heat, and oxygenized air. The first of them is indispensable, inasmuch as without it the grain or seed would not swell, and without swelling, could not burst its shell or skin; and heat, in union with water, brings various gases to young plants - especially oxygen - which are necessary for its existence.

With these facts before us, and a knowledge that rain seldom falls in most places where the Rose of Jericho thrives, how are we to account for the extraordinary circumstance of this plant being periodically abundant and flowering at precisely the same season year after year, when, by the acknowledged laws of germination, there has been that succor wanting which is indispensable to propagate vegetation? Now appears the most remarkable and most direct interposition of nature for her offspring - an interposition little short of miraculous, and, indeed, apparently so fabulous as to be unworthy of record. But the fact has been established beyond doubt that, for its own purposes, this little plant performs annual journeys over a large extent of country, and into the ocean, whence, at a stated period, it, or rather its offspring, returns to the original haunts, takes root, thrives, and blossoms.

In the height of spring, when nature casts her brilliant vesture, set with flowers and flowerets of a hundred varied hues, over the fertile valleys and hills of Syria and part of Palestine; when every breeze is laden with rich incense from orange groves or honeysuckle dells, then, unheeded, amid the rich profusion of vegetation, or isolated amid the desert sands, blossoms the tiny Rose of Jericho. On house-tops, where the sun's fierce rays rend crevices - on dust-heaps, where half-starved wretched curs prowl and dig for food or a resting-place - where multitudes throng the streets, and where neither foot of man nor beast has ever left imprint on 1 the broiling sand, there sprouts the wonderful Anastatica hieroehuntina. When summer has fairly set in, and flowering shrubs have ceased to blossom - about the same season of the year that Mt. Brown and his family are meditating a month's trip to the seaside for fresh breezes and sea-bathing, when the whole house is turned top -turvy in the pleasurable excitement of packing for the month's holiday - the Rose of Jericho begins to show symptoms of a migratory disposition also.

How astonished Mr. Brown would be if his gardener rushed in with the startling Intelligence that some favorite rose-bush or other plant in the garden bad evinced signs of restlessness, and, after a few preliminary efforts, had quietly taken itself off for the season!

Hadji Ismail, the Bedouin camel-driver, who witnesses this phenomenon annually, encountering scores of migratory Anastatica hierochuntina, simply pauses to stroke his prolific beard and fresh charge his pipe, while be pours into the eager ears of some untravelled novice legends about this wonderful rose - legends replete with fairy romance, in which almost invariably a certain unmentionable gentleman comes in for a volley of invectives, as being the instigator of this mysterious freak of nature.

The first symptom the Rose of Jericho gives of an approaching tour is the shedding of all her leaves; the branches then collapse, apparently wither, and roll themselves firmly into the shape of a ball. Like the fairies that travelled in nut-shells, this plant ensconces itself in its own framework of a convenient shape, size, and weight for undertaking the necessary journey. Not long has the flower assumed this shape when strong land-breezes sweep over the land, blowing hot and fiercely towards the ocean. In their onward course, these land-winds uproot and carry with them the bulbs or framework of our rose; and, once uprooted, these are tossed and blown over many and many a dreary mile of desert sand, till they are finally whirled up into the air, and swept over the coast into the ocean.

Soon after the little plant comes into contact with the water, it unpacks again, unfolds itself, expands its branches, and expels its seeds from the seed-vessels. Then the mother-plant finishes her career, or is stranded a wreck upon the sea-beach. However this may be, it seems evident that the seeds, after having been thoroughly saturated with water, are brought back by the waves, and cast high and dry upon the beach. When the westerly winds set in with violence from the sea, they carry these seeds back with them, scattering them far and wide over the desert, and among inhabited lands; and so surely as the spring-time comes round will the desolate borders of the desert be enlivened by the tiny blossoms of the Rose of Jericho. - Chambers' Journal.