the American gooseberry-tree; a genus of the monogynia order, belonging to the decandria clas of plants. There are a great many species, all of them natives of the warm parts of America, and very beautiful on account of the variegation of their leaves. Most of the leaves are of two different colours on their surfaces; the under side being either white gold-colour or russet, and their upper parts of different shades of green; so that they make a fine appearance in the hot-house all the year round. There are but few of these plants in the European gardens; which may perhaps have been occasioned by the difficulty of bringing over growing plants from the West Indies; and the seeds being small when taken out from the pulp of their fruits, rarely succeed. The best way is to have the entire fruits put up in dry sand as soon as they are ripe, and forwarded by the quickest contrivance to England. They should be immediately taken out when they arrive, and the seeds sown in pots of light earth, and plunged into a moderate hot-bed of tanner's bark. When the plants come up, and are fit to be removed, they must each be planted in a small pot, and plunged into the tan-bed; and afterwards treated as other exotic plants.

MELCHITES, in church-history, the name given to the Syriac, Egyptian, and other Christians of the Levant. The Melchites, excepting some few points of little or no importance, which relate only to ceremonies and ecclesiastical discipline, are in every respect professed Greeks: but they are governed by a particular patriarch, who resides at Damas, and assumes the title of patriarch of Antioch. They celebrate mass in the Arabian language. The religious among the Melchites follow the rule of St Basil, the common rule of all the Greek monks. They have four fine convents distant about a day's journey from Damas, and never go out of the cloister.