Dear Sir : - In compliance with your request to be furnished with some account of the history, synonyma, etc, of the pretty flowering Shrub, known among our Florists by the name of Weigelia rosea (or Weigela, as it has often - and perhaps was originally - written), - I take pleasure in sending such notices of the plant as my limited resources enable me to offer. It appears that this shrub was announced, by the London Horticultural Society, as "one of the new plants" sent home to England from China, about ten years ago, by Mr. Fortune. See Downing's Horticulturist, vol. 1, p. 48. A further account of it, with a figure, is given in the second volume of the Horticulturist, pages 359-60. The description is tolerably good, - except that, with us, the branches, loaded with beautiful flowers, are rather erect, and do not "hang down in graceful and natural festoons." The plant is also briefly noticed in volumes 3 and 4, - and still as if something new. It would seem, however, that the same plant was made known by Kaempfer, as long ago as 1712, by the names (probably aboriginal in Japan,) of Sima utsugi, and Nippon utsugi.

Thunberg, in his Flora Japonica, - supposing it to be a new genus - published it, in 1784, by the name of Weigela Japonica, - in honor of Prof. C. E. Weigel, a German Botanist. Willdenow, in his edition of the Species Plantarum, vol. l,p. 836, gives it by the name of Weigelia Japonica. Professor De Cansdolle, being satisfied on a closer examination, that it really belongs to Tournefort's previously established American genus, Diervilla, referred it thither; and in 1830, published it in the 4th volume of his Prodomius, page 330, by the name of Diervilla Japonica, - retaining, according to the received canon, the specific name imposed by Thun-bjsrq. By this name, of course, it will be hereafter known among Botanists - and all others, who are duly posted up, or desire to be correct, in the use of the authentic nomenclature.

This species is stated to be indigenous at Jeddo, - at or near which place, Commodore Perry negotiated the recent treaty with Japan.

I observe the plant, under cultivation here, frequently,sports flowers with a four-lobed corolla, and four stamens, - the normal number being five.

There is another species in Japan - referred doubtfully to this genus, - viz:

Diervilla Coraeensis, Dc. (Weigela Coraeensis Thunb.), - which, if established, will make, with our 2). Canadensis, Willd., three known species altogether.

[Thanks to our correspondent for his lucid account of a plant we much admire' and which will undoubtedly take a permanent place in all gardens. The name which it generally receives is a fruitful subject of discussion from its awkwardness and uncouthness; as a Hose by any other name, etc., so the Weigelia will be as beautiful under its proper name of Diervilla, though we cannot but wish that it had a designation as easily remembered as the old favorite Lilac. - Ed].