HAI-TANG, a beautiful Chinese shrub, originally brought from the bottom of the rocks which border the sea-coast. It has been cultivated in China for more than 14 centuries; and is celebrated as often in the works of the Chinese poets, as roses and lilies are in those of ours. Painters and embroiderers ornament almost all their works with its foliage and flowers. The stalk of the hai-tang is of a cylindric form, and shoots forth a number of branches of a purple tint towards their bases, and full of knots, which are also of a purple colour round the edges. It produces a number of shoots, the tallest of which are about two feet and a half in height. Its leaves (which are much indented, of an oval form towards the stalk, pointed at their upper extremities, and full of small prickles) grow almost opposite one another on the branches, and at the same distance as the knots. Their colour above is a deep-green; that below is much lighter, and al- most effaced by their fibres, which are large, and of a delicate purple: all these leaves together have a beau- tiful effect to the eye. The flowers grow in bunches at the extremities of the branches. Each flower is composed of four petals, two great and two small, re- sembling in colour the bloom of a peach-tree, and Hai-Tang, which have almost the same figure as the blossom of our cherry-trees. The two large are cemented one upon the other, in the form of a purse; and when they blow, the two small blow also in their turn; and then the whole four represent a cross. The pistil is composed of very bright yellow grains, which separate gradually one from another by the lengthening of the filaments to which they adhere; they then open into little bells, and compose a small yellow tuft, supported by a slender stalk, which rises above the petals. The calyx, which sustains each of the flowers, is composed of two purple-coloured leaves, united in form of a purse. In proportion as the flowers grow and increase in size, the two leaves of the calyx open, become pale and dry, and drop off. The flowers, supported by small stalks, separate one from the other, and produce of themselves other flowers, which rise up from a new calyx.

This plant is propagated from seed, but with difficulty. It thrives best in a sandy soil; dung or mould destroy it; and great care must be taken to refresh it only with the purest water. As it cannot endure the sun in any season, it is always planted below walls that are exposed to the north. It generally begins to flower about the end of August. After it has produced seed, all its branches are cut; and it commonly shoots forth new ones before the spring following; but it is necessary to heap up gravel and pieces of bricks round its roots, to prevent them from rotting. Notwithstanding all the care that is taken to cultivate this tree at Peking, it does not thrive so well there as in the southern provinces. The smell of its leaves has an affinity both to that of the rose and the violet; but it is weaker, and never extends to any great distance.