RHODODENDRON. 



Rheum. — The stately splendour of the great Rhubarbs, such as 

 Rh. palmatum and Rh. officinale, &c, needs no further passport to the 

 waterside, from which they trample out poor Gunnera, superb no less 

 in their vast gashed foliage than in their 10-foot stout spires of spouting 

 creamy or currant-red foam in early summer. Rh. Alexandrae is 

 yard-high, with large yellow oval leaves flopping on the spike. Rh. 

 Emodi has the same stature and red-flowered spikes ; and for huge 

 columnar overlapping-leaved Rh. nobile, that stands a stern column 

 of downward-tiled foliage on the cliffs of Nepal, and up through the 

 everlasting snows of Tibet, we long in vain. And there are countless 

 other species, yet never one as yet for which the rock-garden essen- 

 tially craves. All can be easily raised, divided and grown, in any 

 rich soil. 



Rhexia virginica has been unwisely praised. It is at once a 

 worthless and impossible species of the pine-barrens and swamps of 

 the Southern States, growing about 18 inches high, with opposite 

 egg-shaped leaves all up the stems, and pink-magenta flowers about 

 an inch across, in thick spikes through July and August. It is an 

 erect and gawky grower, suggesting a stiff and inferior Loosestrife. 

 In the same condemnation, and no less impracticable as well as ugly, 

 are Rh. Mariana, Rh. ciliosa, and Rh. aristosa. 



Rhododendron asks for a book, not a page. Such as are fitted for 

 the rock-garden will be found amply annotated in all catalogues that 

 offer them ; and apart from such exquisite jewels as Rh. elaeagnoeides, 

 minute and dainty, with flowers like a little yellow Pyrola uniflora, 

 on stems of about an inch, China is pouring in more and more species, 

 in the way of prostrate high-alpine delights, at present only to be 

 designated by numbers. In the early year the rock-garden rejoices 

 in Rh. praecox, Rh. dauricum, Rh. ciliatum, &c, neat bushes hidden by 

 big lilac-pink flowers (or noble creamy-rosy trumpets in the case of 

 the last) ; smaller, neater, and more exquisite are Rh. anthopogon, 

 with yellow clusters, and bronzy leaves in winter that are almost 

 dauntingly aromatic ; and Rh. imbricatum, with hoary blue little 

 packed shoots headed by clusters of lovely starry blue-violet blooms 

 with golden eyes. Rh. kamschaticum is minutely dwarf, with broad 

 hairy deciduous leaves of pale-green, and half -nodding large singly- 

 borne flowers, flat and wide, of deep satiny claret-purple ; Rh. lappo- 

 nicum is very dwarf and rare (Rh. myrtifolium always being sent out 

 wrongly under its name) ; Rh. chrysanthum is prostrate, with heads of 

 largo yellow trumpets, and a sullen mimpish temper ; Rh racemosum 

 has lost half the family hate of lime (living as it does in China on a 

 limestone sub-soil), and makes stalwart bushes, fine in the white 



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