We learn from the February Monthly that "our common poison vine, Rhus toxicodendron, is being cultivated in Europe under the name of Am-pelopsis japonica," which seems "wond'rous strange " to those who know one from the other.

While recently in England, I frequently noticed when passing through Barton, under Needwood churchyard, what a nice variety of pretty climbing plants loving hands had planted; and were growing up the gray lichen-covered walls of the old village church. And especially beautiful were the heavy masses of the fragrant white flower spangled Jasminum officinale, which richly draped a goodly portion of one side of the structure. And while the humble worshipers within were offering their adorations to God, they inhaled the pure incense of sweet flowers, as the soft summer winds gently wafted their rich odors through the open windows, far more delicious than the smell of frankincense and myrrh.

If the readers think this is a pretty picture of an ancient church, the quaint beauty of which has impressed the looker-on with admiration, and thus to favorably notice it, their conjectures will be true. But when I inform them that within the green churchyard there is a long row of silent chambers where my ancestors, on my father's side, have long been at rest, they will understand why it is so reverently remembered. And but a few feet from the western angle of this antique sanctuary where my kith and kin are sleeping - closely clinging to one of the buttresses, is a vigorous specimen of the villainous Rhus toxicodendron, or American poison vine. To my surprise nobody seemed aware that its character was almost as bad as the fabled Upas tree, or that there was any danger in handling it, and which leads me to think it cannot possibly be as baneful in England as it is here. The simple villagers seemed sceptical about its noxious properties, and dubiously smiled at the idea of its being capable of inflicting such severe pain upon whosoever incautiously handled it.

However that may be, it is nevertheless past my comprehension how any intelligent people could confound the name of the pretty innocent modern climber, Am-polopsis japonica, with that of the vile old poison vine, Rhus toxicodendron - that terrible pest of the rural rambler, whose fierce maledictions are often evoked when feeling the painful effects of the venomous vine.