Plate 11."). 

 SPIK.EA PALMATA. 



Man\ of the Spiraeas arc already known as interesting and 

 showy shrubs. — much more used, indeed, on the Continent than 

 they arc here, for we saw large numbers of them during the 

 present year in the various gardens around Paris, and lighting 

 up with their brilliant flowers many of the little "parterres sur- 

 rounding the railway-stations ; but amongst them all we question 

 if there is one which can vie in beaut] with the plant now 

 figured, which has been lately exhibited by Mr. Noble, of Bag- 

 shot, and of which Dr. Hooker, writing in the ' Botanical 

 Magazine,' thus says: — "By far the handsomest species of the 

 Limus hitherto imported, and certainly one of the most beautiful 

 hardy plants in cultivation ; the deep purple-red of the stem 

 and branches, passing into the crimson-purple of the glorious 

 broad corymbs of flowers, contrasts most excpiisitely with the 

 foliage, which in autumn assumes beautiful tints of brown and 

 golden-yellow. Spir&a palmata is a native of Japan, and was 

 introduced by Messrs. Noble, of Bagshot, through Mr. Fortune, 

 from whom dried specimens are in the Hookerian Herbarium 

 at Kew. Thunberg describes it as sometimes having white 

 flowers, and Professor Asa Gray has referred a white-flowered 

 Japanese plant to this, which, however, is identical with a gla- 

 brate form of Spiraea digitata (var. glabra, Ledebour), and differs 

 in the much broader stipules with cordate bases." 



With so many beautiful flowering shrubs as we possess, it is 

 strange that we do not see them more extensively cultivated; it 

 may be that, flowering in the summer as they do, when we have 

 other flowers in abundance, they are not so much appreciated 

 as they might otherwise be ; but now. when horticulture is 

 making such rapid progress, we do look to see, especially in our 



