276 ^'^E^^' I'l.ANTS, ETC., 



tinue in succession at least a month, each flower lasting only two 

 days, after which time it drops off before fading. 



10. Ceanothus verrucosus. Ntittall, in Torrey and Gray, Fl. 

 N. Amer., i. 267 ; Hooker, in Bat. Mag., t. 4660. 



Raised from seeds collected by Hartweg in California, and 

 received at the Garden, June 5th, 1848, as " a shrub 8 

 feet high, growing on the Santa Cruz mountains." 



This proves to be a hardy evergreen of the best kind. It 

 forms already a large bush, and will probably become a tree with 

 long stiff rod-like downy branches, covered in winter with multi- 

 tudes of large oblong or roundish brown buds. The leaves are 

 opposite, roundish oblong, either slightly notched or entire at the 

 end, scarcely an inch long at the largest, flat, deep green, shining, 

 with grey hairy pits distributed over all the under surface. 

 Occasionally, when the plant is young, they are coarsely toothed, 

 as is represented in the Botanical Magazine ; but that is an ex- 

 ceptional state : the usual condition is what is shown in the annexed 

 cut. At the base of each leaf is a pair of stipules, which gradually 

 lose their thin extremities and change into soft fleshy conical 

 prickles. The flowers are very pale blue, produced in great abund- 

 ance in dense corymbs at the end of very short stiff lateral branches. 



This shrub is among the most easy of plants to grow, and 

 seems indifferent to climate or soil. It is increased by cuttings 

 of the half-ripened wood, placed in sand under a hand-glass in a 

 north aspect about the end of August. It is, however, best 

 propagated by layering in the autumn. It flowers in June. 



It may be added that with the single exception of C. cuneatus^ 

 a white-flowered species of little beauty, all the Californian 

 Ceanothuses prove to be hardy near London. It is only requisite 

 that they should not be placed in soil which keeps them growing 

 till late in the year, but that their wood should be well ripened. 

 In the Botanical Magazine Sir Wm. Hooker, in speaking of 

 C.rigidus, observes that — " The North-west American Ceano- 

 thuses are particularly deserving of cultivation in the open 

 ground ; but it may require a Devonshire climate to bring them 

 to the state in which they are at Bishopstowe, as just announced 

 to me in a letter, dated 27th May, 1852, of the Bishop of Exeter. 

 ' The Ceanothus divaricatus is now in its highest beauty : the 

 largest plant is eighteen feet high, eighteen feet wide, twelve 

 feet deep {i. e. from back to front), covered with thousands of 

 the beautiful thyrsoid flowers, so that the leaves are hardly visible. 

 C. rigidus blossomed about six weeks ago ; C. dentatus is now 

 in full flower ; C. papillosus is just coming into flower ; 

 C. azureus will not blossom before August.' " 



