OF SHRUBS AND THEIR PLACING 19 
fragrance. Of course it was Chimonanthus fragrans—a 
great bush of it, clothed all over with those dull pale, 
waxy flowers, of which one is enough to fill a whole big 
house with bliss. But though I have great bushes now 
at home—bushes that shoot and thrive and ramp—yet 
I have not yet had even that one flower annually for 
which I would almost compound. Not only, by the way, 
are the blossoms of Chimonanthus thus scented, but if 
ever any one has noticed the curious musty sweetness that 
hangs characteristically about everything imported from 
Japan, and has wondered what the cause may be, let me 
advise him to pick off and pulverise some dry, dead twig 
of the Chimonanthus. Immediately, and with no money 
spent on train or steamer, he will find himself standing 
in the avenue that leads up to the temple of K’annon 
Bodhisat’ at Asak’sa, in the full roaring tide of Japanese 
life. So poignant, so instant is the call of a fragrance. 
Another Japanese shrub of high rank for the rock- 
garden (for the Calycanthus-cousins of Chimonanthus 
awake no zeal in me, nor will I linger over half-hardy 
Serissa foetida, whose pretty little blue stars do most un- 
utterably stink) is the heavenly Bamboo, Nandina domes- 
tica, which unites the delicate leafage of an immense 
Vancouveria or Spiraea with loose, lovely showers of white 
or scarlet berries, which Europeans in the East use at 
Christmas as a substitute for Holly. Nandina is a very 
holy plant in the East; it is always planted by every 
verandah, at the place where the bowl stands on its 
stoop for the washing of hands. And in England, 
with me, despite sad prophecies, I have found Nandina 
perfectly easy and perfectly hardy. It loses much of 
its leafage in winter (hence I class it here as deciduous), 
but never fails to continue thriving robustly. Of course 
it does not fruit, and never will fruit, but the beauty of 
the ‘ fronds’ is so conspicuous as to set it in the front 
