IRISH GARDENING 



VOLUME XIV 



No. 157 



Editor -J. W. Besant. 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE 



ADVANCEMENT OF HORTICULTURE AND 



ARBORICULTURE IN IRELAND 



MARCH 

 1919 



Lavatera olbia and some others* 





acter in the 

 the British 



HE note on Lavatera ulbia at 

 Greenfields, in the November 

 number, shows that in Ireland, 

 as sometimes in the south of 

 England, this handsome shrub 

 " loses much of its normal char- 

 damp and less sunny climate of 

 Isles than of the Mediterranean 

 I'egion, where it is a native. But it is not so 

 much the damp as the want of sun which give 

 rise to the " delicate pink " of the flowers, and 

 the " deep green leaves " — velvety though the}" 

 may be. 



In t'he Hyeres district, in the south of 

 France, whence this plant gets its specific 

 name, for Olbia was the Koman name for 

 Hyeres, it is a characteristic feature in the 

 landscape ; and grows not only in waste places 

 by road-sides, but on some of the sandy 

 marshes near the sea. In fact, I have a photo- 

 graph of it in winter associated with the Com- 

 mon Eeed (Pliraginites counnunis), the prickly 

 Cahjcotoine spinosa, Spartlum junceum of our 

 gardens, and other plants forming a dense 

 thicket on sandy soil close to a stretch of water 

 separating it from a line belt of Umbrella or 

 Stone Pines (P. Pinea) on the Plage de Gieus, 

 below Hyeres. Its brilliant purplish red or 

 almost crimson blossoms, on long, handsome 

 spikes, appear in ^lay and continue untd July. 

 The leaves are well described as of the shape 

 of an Ivy leaf, and like the Ivy, are variable in 

 shape and size, the upper leaves being small 

 and more or less hastate ; but t'hey are always 

 covered with a dense velvety tomentum, which 

 gives them a pale grey-green tint. The carpels 

 also are covered with down. A few years ago 

 there M'as a specimen of L. olbia on the road 

 from Hyeres to Carqueiranne, towards Toulon, 

 with a woody trunk a foot in girth. 



In England, the most brightly-coloured 

 flowers of Lavatera ulbia I have seen were near 

 Christchurch, in Hants; and specimens in a 

 rectory garden in Somerset were almost as pale 

 as those described at Greenfields. 



Of the score of known species of Lavatera, 

 six grow as natives in France, and only one 

 {L. arborea) appears indigenous on our coasts; 

 though L. sylveatris Brot. [L. creiica L.) 

 occurs as a casual in Guernsey, Cornwall and 

 the SciUy Isles. L. sylvestris is a biennial, 

 resembling forms of the Common Mallow {M. 

 sylvestris), but the three large lobes of the calyx 

 distinguish it. The petals are likewise deeply 

 emarginate, but three of the purple veins are 

 prominent and two are less so. 



L. arborea, the Tree INIallow, of which we 

 gi^•e a i^hotograph of part of a big shrub taken 

 on iNIarch 12, 1913, in the Var, France, is also 

 a ^lediterranean plant; but it extends round 

 the west coast of France to our own shores. 

 In Co. Kerry it is considered by Dr. Scully as 

 truly native on some of t'he islands off the coast, 

 "very rare on sea-cliffs and rather frequent in 

 gardens and about houses, especially near the 

 sea." Such a description of its status would 

 well apply to the plant in both Somerset and 

 Cornwall. J\Ir. Lloyd Praeger also considers 

 the Tree Mallow " without question native in 

 Clare, on sea-cliffs and stacks on Inishmore and 

 at Spanish Point." Its blossoms are pale rose- 

 coloured with glossy purple-black centre and 

 veins. 



The three other species of Lavatera found in 

 France are L. punctata, an annual, with large 

 lilac-pink flowers, which are solitary in the leaf- 

 axils ; L. triviestris, also annual, and with 

 handsome bright-rose blossoms placed solitarily 

 in the axils of the leaves, and with a glabrous 

 fruit having a concave disc covering the car- 



