The misfortune of common names is, as we have often suggested, that no one feels bound to adopt a name already common to a plant, but feels privileged to give it another name or as many names as he likes. In this country the great merits of the Viburnum plicatum as an ornamental plant have been some time known, and it is being planted everywhere as the Japan Snowball. In England they are only just beginning to appreciate its great merits, and getting "to run" on it. They think it time it went by a common name. One would think that a name already adopted by millions of people speaking their own tongue, would be "common" enough in all conscience, and that Japan Snowball would be good enough under the circumstances. But we see that it is to have a wholly new common name, and it has recently been christened "the Chinese Guelder Rose".

Guelder Rose, we are informed is from its " Roselike balls," and it was originally introduced into England from Gueldres, in France. It was a brilliant fancy that saw much like roses in a bunch of Snowballs.