In gardens there is a dearth of good ornamental shrubs to flower about midsummer. Those which flower from old wood are about over, while the fall flowerers, or those which bloom at the end of spring growth, are scarcely in season. A capital dwarf shrub for this floral interregnum is Indigofera Dosua, an East Indian plant of the Indigo family, which is profuse in its presentation of purple spikes of pea-shaped blossoms. Besides its beauty it will interest the " children," besides those of larger growth who love to watch the singular ways of nature, by the manner in which the keel jumps back when any one touches it. It is supposed to have some "advantage" to the plant by preventing " in and in " breeding. The disadvantage here is, that it prevents our getting much seed at all, and hence the plant is rather rare in our gardens from the difficulty of propagating, which has to be done from shy-rooting cuttings. If those plants that "desire cross fertilization " had remained satisfied to produce seed in the good old-fashioned way, they would have progressed better through the world.