48 SPIRAEA PRUNIFOLIA AND lORSYTIIIA VIKIDISflMA 



noble river flowing by their base, and open to a cold breeze from 

 the north, especially in winter, during which time tiie constitu- 

 tional hardiness of plants can be well tested. The soil in which 

 it grows is a gravelly loam ; the plant is about 5 feet high, very 

 bushy, and it appears to have been planted two or three years. 

 During the summer of 1850 it made shoots from 3 to 4 feet 

 long, which, though strong and gross, •were well ripened in the 

 autumn The bright light and burning heat of an American 

 sun consolidatethe wood as it elongates during summer. Autumn 

 arrives, fully as warm as an English summer, and much drier. 

 This perfects what remains of the ripening process, and enables 

 the plant to endure the winter unprotected, through a degree of 

 cold which has no parallel in Britain. About the middle of 

 IMarch it commences opening its blooms, which had been thickly 

 set over the wood of the previous year, and by the end of the 

 same month it is one complete mass of deep yellow. Its season 

 of flowering will of course depend on the latitude in which it is 

 grown : here it commenced opening its blooms on the first ap- 

 proach of fair weather, and while the snow still lay thickly on 

 the ground. Compared with other early flowering plants, it was 

 decidedly ahead of all of them. Even the early Pyrus (Cydo- 

 nia) Japonica had scarcely commenced expanding its flowers 

 when the Forsythia was in full beauty. In the 1st Vol. of the 

 ' Gardener's Magazine of Botany,' p. 249, occurs the following 

 passage : — " Unfortunately the flowers are too delicate in texture 

 to bear exposure to rough w'ind, as they are readily bruised and 

 soon show the effects of rough treatment ; but planted and trained 

 against a wall, or in a very sheltered situation, it will be found 

 a useful and excellent plant." So far is this from being correct, 

 that I know of no plant whose blooms will bear an'equal amount 

 of " rough treatment" uninjured. The subject of my remarks here 

 was fuUj' three weeks in bloom, during which time it encountered 

 one or two falls of snow and much wet weather, yet the blooms 

 did not appear discoloured in the least up to the time they 

 dropped off, and the ground was literally covered with them. The 

 plant was in an open, exposed situation. In order to grow this 

 plant well in England, we must examine the causes to which 

 success is to be attributed in the case just cited. It was not soil ; 

 for that in which the plant was placed was rather of a poor de- 

 scription, and I observed other plants in the same nursery grow- 

 ing vigorously in earth of the poorest kind. Bright light and 

 intense heat are the conditions to which success was owing ; for 

 the plants were luxuriant and happy, such as we might expect to 

 have seen them in their Eastern home. In England, no doubt, 

 the best situation for it would be against a soutli wall, where it 

 would receive all the sunlight possible ; so circumstanced, it 



