Pollywog

A fair correspondent, writing some time back, says, "Your answer to Francis Mary is amusing. We would suggest that the transformation you propose should not properly take place till warm weather, winter being rather an unfavorable season for the change; and even the ladies should not request it this cold weather." Now that's sensible and considerate, and we shall positively refuse to turn into a Pollywog for the present, and we hope the girls won't ask it, for we don't like to refuse them. Thank you, M., for getting us out of that "wriggle".

Poltoala

G. You have been keeping this too wet, which is the reason the stems turn yellow. It is a fine green-house plant, but not desirable for your conservatory, which you wish to show well in the evening by lamp-light, because the flowers become inconspicuous. On the other band, you will find Epacris impressa, much more showy at night than in the day, in that situation.

Polygal Spancifolia, (Flowering Wintergreen.)

In the border of these pine woods we find this delicate red flower. The plant is about the size of the common wintergreen, yet it produces one or two flowers of rare beauty; often hundreds of them may be found where the fallen pine leaves have checked every other species of vegetation.

Polygonatum Punctatum

A hardy herbaceous tuberous perennial, related to Convallaria, with ovate lanceolate leaves, and two-flowered axillary peduncles, the flowers being small, erect, whitish, tipped with green. Bhotan.

Polygonatum Roseum

A pretty hardy herbaceous tuberous perennial. It has oblong lanceolate leaves, frequently growing in threes, and from their axils the pretty pale rose bell-shaped flowers spreadiag or often de curved appear, frequently in pairs. Siberia.

Polystichum Vestium Venuslurm

This is an extremely beautiful fern and should be in every collection. It is a native of New Zealand, and is of easy cultivation and free growth.

And now we come to the genus Pteris, which furnishes us with numerous beautiful and interesting species. .

P. arguta, a strong growing handsome fern, succeeding well almost under any circumstances, and growing freely in any open soil; should only be introduced where there is plenty of room.

A Polytechnic Institute For Boston

There was much talk in New York at one time of converting the Crystal Palace into a Polytechnic Institute. The idea,was a capital one, but in this instance it all ended in "smoke." We do not despair, however, of yet having something of the kind in connection with our noble Central Park. In Boston a movement on a grand scale has recently been made to secure a portion of the Back Bay lands, to be set "apart and used in all coming time for the erection of buildings, by various existing or future institutions devoted to the sciences and arts, whose museums, cabinets, and repositories of industrial and fine art products shall be so arranged and laid open to the public, as best to promote the educational and material interests of the Commonwealth." Truly a noble project, in which Horticulture bears no mean part. We wish it unbounded success; and of this we are hopeful when we see at the head of it such a man as Marshall P. Wilder.