July 31—We have been admiring two plants which have most peculiar habits; one of them produces an abundance of flowers until early afternoon while the other is in full only in the evening, it does open its flowers earlier on a cloudy day, but it absolutely refuses to recognize Shanghai Summer time when the sun is shining. The forenoon plant is the purslane or Portulaca grandiflora, it is a low-growing trailing plant with fleshy leaves and it will thrive in the poorest of soils. It requires a hot dry situation however, for as it only flowers in full sunshine, it is useless to plant it in the shade, We have seen large masses of single colour planted among the stones on a on pathway: they were a fine sight, but a mixed lot is also beautiful and what a mixture of colours there are. Portulaca was first found growing in sandy soil near the western boundary of the Pampas, those treeless plains where Pampas grass abounds. The plant which only opens its flowers in the afternoon is Marvel of uth of Britain, Peru or Four O'clock or, as the botanists call it Mirabilis Jalapa. This plant is interesting as Well as beautiful and as it grows with little or no attention, it is useful. "Four O'clock" has their large entire leaves and it has tuberous roots like our favourite Dahlias, it is generally grown as an al however, and few people annual, take the trouble to sow seed: it just comes the. along every year, none the worse for being self-sown. The funnel-shaped flowers are most peculiar: some are blotched, others "quartered," Others crimson and still others on the same branch may be white, the flowers only produce one seed each. Mirabilis is an old-fashioned "will be unti* wu purgative, and it was ame r that reason. Jalap is however obtained from the dried root of a member of the convolvulus family Ipomoea purga.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.