The azalea is a genus of plants belonging to the natural order _Ericeæ_ and to the sub-order _Rhodoreæ_ named in allusion to the dry places in which many of the species grow, and consists of upright shrubs with large, handsome, fragrant flowers, often cultivated in gardens. The genus comprises more than a hundred species, most of them natives of China or North America, having profuse clusters of white, orange, purple, or variegated flowers, some of which have long been the pride of the gardens of Europe. The general characteristics of the genus are a five-parted calyx, a five-lobed funnel-form, slightly irregular corolla, five stamens, a five-celled pod, alternate, oblong, entire, and ciliated leaves, furnished with a glandular point. Most of the species differ from the rhododendrons in having thin, deciduous leaves. Some botanists unite the genus azalea to rhododendron. North America abounds in azaleas as well as in rhododendrons, and some of the species have long been cultivated, particularly _A. nudiflora_ and _A. viscosa_, which have become the parents of many hybrids. Both species abound from Canada to the southern parts of the United States. _A. calendulcea_, a native of the South, is described as frequently clothing the mountains with a robe of living scarlet. All the American species are deciduous. In cultivation the azaleas love the shade and a soil of sandy peat or loam. Works on horticulture give specific and elaborate direction for the cultivation of the various species. C. C. M. [Illustration: AZALEA. COPYRIGHT 1899, DOUBLEDAY & McCLURE CO., NEW YORK.] COMMENDABLE BOOKS. W. E. WATT. =Chapters on the Natural History of the United States.= By Dr. R. W. Shufeldt. Studer Brothers, Publishers, 114 Fifth avenue, New York. The man who is able to go out into the fields and see things is a good man to know. Whether he has the gift of telling well what he sees or not, we are glad to be with him, for he is full of the things we desire much to know, and we can get them out of him. If he is a rare story-teller, with marked powers of description, so much the better. But if he combines these elements with the practice of an expert photographer and uses all his arts to get the secrets of nature down exactly as they appear, he is a prince of good fellows to all who worship at the shrine of nature. Dr. Shufeldt has done all this, and his enterprising publishers have brought out the matter in a large octavo volume of about four hundred pages, solidly bound, with gilt tops. The price is only $3.50, net, and any lover of nature having the half tones he gives would not part with them for ten times the cost of the book.