Few works, perhaps, connected with Botany, treated especially as an elegant amusement, have enjoyed a more extensive or a more deserved share of reputation and popularity than the BOTANICAL MAGAZINE, commenced, and for many years so ably conducted, by the late Mr. Curtis.

It was the first work of the kind that had ever been attempted in any country; though it has now met with imitators in many parts of Europe, and even in North America. The great expense, however, of keeping up complete sets of the entire stock of Fiftythree Volumes, and the heavy cost attending the purchase of the whole work to individuals who have not taken it from the commencement, have induced the present proprietor and conductor of the Botanical Magazine, Mr. Samuel Curtis, to resolve upon meeting the wishes of many lovers of Horticulture and Botany, Gardeners, and such as have it not in their power to procure the original edition, and to publish an entirely NEW EDITION of the OLD SERIES, on a more economical, but scarcely less beautiful, and in some respects more useful form.

This new edition will be printed in royal octavo, on fine paper, and the plates will be half coloured. The descriptive part will be confined to what is necessary for the determination of the species, and the whole will be published in systematic order, commencing with the Clematis and Ranunculus Tribe, and following the arrangement of the celebrated DE CANDOLLE, as given in his "Prodromus." There will be given at the head of the species, the characters of the CLASSES, ORDERS, and GENERA. Such remarks will be made upon their uses and properties and cultivation, derivation of generic names, &c. &c. as the subject may require; and the whole will be written in English. Any figure that may be requisite for the illustration of such Orders as are not given in the Old Series, will be selected from the New: so that the work will be an epitome of all that has been made known to Science, both by figures and descriptions, through the medium of the Botanical Magazine, during a period of forty-five years.

A Number, price 1s. (or with the Plates full coloured, price 2s.) will appear twice in every month, containing four Plates accompanied by four pages of closely-printed Letter Press, more or less as the subject may require. A volume of Ninety-six Plates will thus appear every year.

The Letter Press will be conducted by Dr. HOOKER, Regius Professor of Botany in the University of Glasgow; with the exception of what regards the cultivation of the species, which will invariably be supplied by Mr. CURTIS.

"Mr. CURTIS and Dr. HOOKER are doing the gardening and botanical public a great service; for important as is the first edition of THE BOTANICAL MAGAZINE to botanists and cultivators of flower plants, for the elucidation of their pursuit, its price makes it inaccessible to too many of them. The present edition goes to remedy this inconvenience. The first edition has, too, the fault of having the various species of a genus (where several species of a genus have been figured in the work) scattered through two, more, or many volumes: take the genus IRIS as an example. In the present edition, the species figured and described are to succeed each other in the natural order of their kindred relations. This circumstance would lead us much to prefer the new edition to the old. The first number was published on April 1, 1833, and a sight of it has given us pleasure. It contains a preface, in which is sketched an outline of those points in the structure of plants which are most relevant in determining their natural resemblances and affinities. In succession to this, the characters of DE CANDOLLE's first order, the RANUNCULACEE, are given, and those of the first tribe in it, the CLEMATIDEA; then follow the characters of the genus Clematis, and pictures and descriptions of four species of it."-Loudon's Gardener's Magazine.

seeds flat orbicular, stamens in a single series. Linn. Sp. Pl. p. 753. Bot. Mag. ed. 1. t. 1264. v. 1. p. 49.

(TAB. XLIII.)— De Cand. Prodr.

CULTURE. A hardy annual, requiring to be sown in March or April.

HAB. Syria. H. Fl. June, July.

2. N. HISPANICA (Spanish-Fennel-flower); anthers apiculated, styles 8-10 erect, capsules smooth with a nerve on the back combined beyond the middle into an obconical fruit, stamens in several bundles, seeds ovate and angled, stem and branches erect glabrous. (TAB. XLIV.)—Linn. Sp. Pl. p. 753. Bot. Mag. ed. 1. t. 1265. De Cand. Prodr. v. 1. p. 49.

CULTURE. A hardy annual, requiring to be sown in March or April.

HAB. Spain and the coast of Barbary. H. Fl. Summer.

3. N. DAMASCENA (Garden Fennel-flower, Love in a Mist, or Devil in a Bush); anthers pointless, carpels five smooth two-celled. combined for their whole length into an ovato-globose capsule, flowers surrounded by a leafy involucre. (TAB. XLV.)—Linn. Sp. Pl. p. 753. Bot. Mag. ed. 1. t. 22. De Cand. Prodr. v. 1. p. 49.

CULTURE. This, like the two preceding species, is a hardy annual, and requires to be planted in the spring; but like them, will mostly stand the winter in the open border, if sown as soon as the seeds are ripe in August. This method will cause the flowering season to be greatly lengthened. Of these and many other quite hardy annuals, the seeds being planted in patches on the flower borders, should be thinned to five or six plants in each patch, as they do not succeed well by transplanting, and if suffered to remain too close, their blossoms are less robust. This varies with white and blue as well as with double flowers, obtained by the careful cultivation of Florists. From the singular involucre surrounding the blossom of this plant are derived its English names of "Devil in a Bush," and "Love in a Mist;" the original name of " Garden Fennel-Flower" being almost unknown.

HAB. Spain and the coast of Barbary. H.

Fl. Summer.

14. AQUILEGIA. Linn. Columbine.

Calyx of five deciduous, coloured, petaloid sepals. Petals five, spreading above, produced below into hollow spurs callous at the extremity, and extending below the sepals. Ovaries three. Capsules three, erect, many-seeded, terminated by the persistent styles. DC. -Named from aquila, an eagle, whose claws the nectaries resemble.

1. A. CANADENSIS (Canadian Columbine); spurs straight, styles and stamens exserted, segments of the leaves tripartite rather obtuse and cut and toothed. (TAB. XLVI.)-Linn. Sp. Pl. p. 752. Bot. Mag. t. 246. De Cand. Prodr. v. 1. p. 50.

CULTURE. This ornamental plant is readily propagated by parting its roots in the autumn; but, perhaps, more extensively by saving its seeds, which in general come up nearly the same as the parent plant; but experience has proved it to produce varieties, one of which, known by the name of gracilis, is more ornamental than the original plant. Flowering in the spring and early summer-months, it ornaments the flower border earlier than the vulgaris, on which account it is very desirable.

HAB. North America. H. Fl. May.

2. A. HYBRIDA (Two-coloured Columbine); spurs straight, slightly incurved at the extremity, longer than the obtuse limb, styles scarcely longer than the petals and stamens, sepals acute as long as the petals, stem and leaves very minutely downy. (TAB. XLVII.) -Sims, Bot. Mag. ed. 1. t. 1221. De Cand. Prodr. v. 1. p. 51.A. speciosa, var. a. De Cand. Syst. Veget. v. 1. p. 336.

CULTURE. It seems doubtful whether this is a true species, or only a variety obtained by seed, in which way the whole of the Genus seem much inclined to sport; a circumstance of which the Florist has taken ample advantage in A. vulgaris, whose manyhued blossoms are cultivated to a great extent in the gardens of the curious. This is said to have been produced among the seedlings of Canadensis; but I should suspect the seed had either been mixed, or that impregnation from vulgaris had taken place, unknown to the raisers of the seed, as it indicates more of the habit of the latter plant. Indeed, in A. alpina, the fine variety, called glandulosa, is another