EVERGREEN VEGETATION IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. Gl 



numerous instances in Mr. Rogers's nursery-garden at Chatton. 

 A row of vigorous and strong-growing plants of common tree- 

 box, about four feet bigh, which I had admired, as promising 

 to form a fine hedge, was utterly killed. The plants had not 

 been recently placed there, but were well established ; the soil 

 a fine brown loam, and in one place inclined to be black and 

 peaty. In the garden of the Parsonage, also, a fine old box-tree 

 perished. At Hedgeley and other places many shrubs of box bore 

 a very small and poor leaf the following season, showing how 

 severely they had felt the cold. Wherever the box happens to 

 stand on poor exhausted soil, such as we find under trees, it 

 generally dies off after a severe winter. But in this case the frost 

 only hastens natural decay. 



The Mediterranean box, Buxus halearica, can only be counted 

 among our more tender evergreens, though the Balearic holly, 

 from the same countries, showed itself as hardy as the common. 

 So far as I could perceive none of our Majorca hollies were in- 

 jured — all, however, stood in dry, airy places, where there was 

 little fog or boar-frost. 



But, among exotic evergreens, I wish to advert only to such as 

 are interesting from their size and frequency, as the Portugal 

 laurel, or for the general admiration they excite, and their pro- 

 mise of becoming familiar features in parks and pleasure grounds. 



Rhododendron 'ponticmn is now thoroughly naturalised in 

 many of our woody denes adjoining mansions. It is sowing itself 

 freely on the summit of Brislaw, in Huln Park. Within that 

 noble and varied enclosure nothing can exceed the luxuriance of 

 its growth, in the extensive glades where it has been so freely 

 and tastefully planted. In the winter, when its flower appears 

 only in the promise of its large pregnant buds, what foliage can 

 surpass the vigorous yet gracefully delicate forms of the rhodo- 

 dendron in sheltered and half-shaded situations % It fears neither 

 fog nor hoar-frost, and flourishes most just where the Portugal 

 laurel and holly are least to be trusted, though it will also bear 

 the open hill-side with impunity. 



This rhododendron was nowhere hurt by the frost of 1854-5, 

 further than this, that in open, windy situations, it bore a feeble 



