OF SHRUBS, MOSTLY EVERGREEN 39 
laurifolius. I envy those fortunate ones; even as I write 
my brain is filled with the hot, poignant fragrance of a 
Mediterranean cliff, flogged by the full glare of midday, 
till all the sweet plants, all grey lavenders, all straggling 
thymes, all odorous, gummy Cistuses pant in thrills of 
vertiginous sweetness. Ah me—AXBatous U7r0 KevO waar 
yevoiwav!—if I may be forgiven this cri de cur, as 
thought of Cistus calls me back to the sun-bruised incense 
of the shrubs above the Madonetta. (‘ Du Grec! 6 ciel! 
du Grec! Il sait du Grec, ma seur!”) 
My only hardy Cistuses, as a matter of fact, are laurt- 
folius, florentinus, undulatus and lusitanicus. And all these 
are so easy to grow that I need say nothing of their 
culture. (Of course no one will plant them in shade.) 
Laurifolius is only less gorgeous in bloom than ladani- 
ferus—big, snowy, profuse in blossom, though the flowers 
soon fall. The whole plant, too, exhales a delicious 
scent of violets, which simply haunts the air, and cannot 
be emphasised by squeezing or breaking. Florentinus is 
a white-flowered hybrid, attractive, but much less so than 
either daurifolius or lusitanicus, which latter is, to my 
taste, the most beautiful of all. It is similar in growth 
to laurifolius (both are bigger plants than undulatus and 
florentinus —this last, the child, I rather fancy, of undulatus 
and daurifolius), but rather frailer and more straggling. 
The huge, fugacious flowers are snow white, but each of 
the five petals is marked, at the base, with a round spot 
of dark maroon. 
It is a far cry from Cistus ladaniferus, laurifolius, lusi- 
fanicus, several feet in height and bulk, to the minute 
Rock-roses, with their countless, reckless display of 
brilliant flowers in every shade, from white to crimson. 
But these, too, are to be ranked with Cistus ; their easi- 
ness, hardiness, commonness, make it as unnecessary to 
recommend them as it is inevitable to grow them, in any 
