rasiliana_, which our
nurserymen call _Verbesina_ _acmella_ as an excellent dentifrice.

I also found here the _amethystea, coerulea_: this annual has been lost
in England above twenty years.[13]

[Note 13: The seeds which are sold in the London shops, for those of
this plant, are those of the _hyssopus bracteatis_.]

The _datura fastuosa_, the French call _Trompette du jugement a trois
fleurs l'une dans l'autre_; I have myself raised these with triple
flowers, both purple and white, though some of our nurserymen pretended
the flowers were never more than double. The _anthemis arabica_, a very
singular and pretty annual. A _zinnia hybrida_, which last has not yet
been cultivated in England. Twenty-two sorts of _medicago polymorpha,
(snails and hedgehogs_) of these I had seen only four in England.

Here was a small single moss-rose plant, in a pot, which is the only one
I ever saw in France. The air is too hot for those roses, and for the
same reason none of the American plants, such as the _magnolia_ (tulip
tree) _kalmia_, &c. thrive in France, though kept in pots in the shade
and well watered; the heat of the atmosphere dries the trunk of these
trees. But there are many other plants, to the growth of which the
climate is much more favourable than it is in England. In the open part
of this garden are a great number of _bignonia-catalpa_ trees, which
were then in flower, resembling horse-chesnut flowers at a distance, but
much larger and more beautiful; and many _nerium oleander_ trees, in
wooden chests; several of these trees are about eight feet high and the
trunk a foot in diameter; they were then full of flowers of all the
sorts, single and double, red and white; these are placed in the
green-house in the winter.

On a mount in this garden is a _meridien sonnant_ (sounding meridian)
this is an iron mortar which holds four pounds of gunpowder, it is
loaded every morning, and exactly at noon the sun discharges the piece
by means of a burning glass, so placed that the _focus_ at that moment
fires the powder in the touch-hole. The first meridian that was made of
this kind is in the garden of the _Palais Royal_, at the top of one of
the houses; I could not see it, but it is thus described in the _Paris
Guide_: "The touch-hole of the cannon is two inches long and half a line
(the twentieth part of an inch) broad, this length is placed in the
direction of the meridian line. Two _transoms_ or _cross-staves_ placed
verti