color of the blossom. Though the most we can do with the winter aconite (_Eranthis hyemalis_) is to rank it among our doubtful wild flowers, we must at least give it “honorable mention,” noticing its whorl of green leaves at the apex of its solitary stem and its large, yellow, handsome blossom, for it is among the hardy little group of plants which flower the nearest in point of time to the first day of the new year. We must not fail to allude in our enumeration of early January flowers to that sweet little plant, the wild heartsease, or pansy (_Viola tricolor_), the progenitor of its host of garden namesakes. Its natural tendency to vary in the color as well as in the size of its blossoms, under varying conditions of growth, will explain the ease with which it can be made subservient to culture. Had it no beauty of its own, its relationship to the violets would claim for it our love and regard; but it is a flower which can not be passed over, for it seems to look at us out of its yellow and darkly-empurpled face with a sort of thoughtful earnestness. The hellebores come within our enumeration of the January flora, and of these the bearsfoot or fœtid hellebore (_Helleborus fœtidus_) is the earliest in flower. It grows to a height oftentimes of two feet. Its smooth stem and leaves are dark green; its leaves narrowly lanceolate, serrated along the edges toward their apices. The large flowers are cuplike, are produced in panicles, or branched clusters, and are light yellowish green in color, the cluster of yellow-anthered stamens forming a conspicuous center to each corolla. Every part of the bearsfoot is highly poisonous, but the plant pleases the eye by its striking and handsome form. It must naturally follow that exceptional hardiness is indicated by capacity to blossom in January. But among all our early flowering plants, there are two which may fairly claim the possession of an especial character for robustness of constitution; for, whilst those we have already mentioned are more or less susceptible to the influence of cold, and some of them will only produce their early blossoms in sheltered nooks, the two we are about to notice can bravely withstand hard frosts in exposed situations.