at encircles the flowers from which they seem
to spring, something after the manner of the scarlet trumpet-
honeysuckle. The leaves and blossoms of this plant are coarse, and by no
means to compare to the former.

We have a great variety of curious orchises, some brown and yellow,
others pale flesh-coloured, striped with crimson. There is one species
grows to the height of two feet, bearing long spikes of pale purple
flowers; a white one with most fragrant smell, and a delicate pink one
with round head of blossoms, finely fringed like the water-pinks that
grow in our marshes; this is a very pretty flower, and grows in the
beaver meadows.

Last autumn I observed in the pine-wood near us a very curious plant; it
came up with naked brown stems, branching off like some miniature tree;
the stalks of this plant were brown, slightly freckled and beset with
little knobs. I watched the progress of maturity in this strange plant
with some degree of interest, towards the latter end of October; the
little knobs, which consisted of two angular hard cases, not unlike,
when fully opened, to a boat in shape, burst asunder and displayed a
pale straw-coloured chaffy substance that resembled fine saw-dust: these
must have been the anthers, but they bore more resemblance to seeds;
this singular flower would have borne examination with a microscope. One
peculiarity that I observed, was, that on pulling up a plant with its
roots, I found the blossoms open under ground, springing up from the
lowest part of the flower-stems, and just as far advanced to maturity as
those that grew on the upper stalks, excepting that they were somewhat
blanched, from being covered up from the air. I can find no description
of this plant, nor any person but myself seems to have taken notice of
it. The specimen I had on being dried became so brittle that it fell to
pieces.

I have promised to collect some of the most singular of our native
flowers for one of the Professors of Botany in the Edinburgh University.

We have a very handsome plant that bears the closest affinity to our
potatoe in its floral construction; it grows to the height of two or
three feet in favourable situations, and sends up many branches; the
blossoms are large, purely white, freckled near the bottom of the
corolla with brownish yellow spots; the corolla is undivided: this is
evidently the same plant as the cultivated potatoe, though it does not
appear to form apples at the root. The fru