Abutilon

THE ABUTILON, Abutilon striatu

IT never rains but it pours" may be a suitable text for a discourse on the abutilon. Only the other day--say the day before yesterday--somebody discovered that the abutilon might by careful cross-breeding be made to yield a vast variety of characters and colours. Presto ! Now there are dozens of new names and varieties, and they constitute attractive and interesting collections of decorative plants for festive dressings as well as for the quiet conservatory.

But as the florists multiplied the varieties they forgot the native inborn elegance of the plant, and were content to grow their named varieties in the form of diminutive bushes, certainly very pretty, but affording no idea of the proper splendour of the plant. Let us, the, turn from the new to the old fashion. The turn takes us into a snug conservatory, where the plants are allowed to show a little of the negligence of nature "wild and wide." Here the abutilon appears as a luxurious vine, with elegant leaves divided into pointed lobes, and bearing curious bell-like flowers of a dull orange-colour, and curiously striped. It is singular that a South American tree should obtain an Eastern name, for abutilon is Arabic for mallow, and this plant is of the mallow tribe. It is the striped mallow vine of the Rio Negro and the Organ Mountains.