VERONICAS. 



though perhaps admissiblo to the cooler places of the wildorness, 

 blooming, as it does, in the later summer. 



Veronicas (New Zealand). — Thoso are usually more or less 

 hardy, bu1 by oo means all are to bo universally trusted. They 

 succeed, however, for their time, in any good, light, rich soil, and 

 make good growth of evergreen foliage, though often too shy of their 

 flowers, which are due to appear in autumn and late summer. They 

 can all bo multiplied endlessly by cuttings. The following list will 

 deal with them in their botanical succession, so as to avoid the 

 necessity of repeated description, and also give a clear chain of differ- 

 ences and comparisons, which ought, by setting each plant among its 

 likes, to give a picture so recognisable as to compensate amply for 

 the complications of reference that so arise, in the disordered jumble of 

 the alphabet. Nor will moro than a selection here bo made, for fuller 

 trial, from among such species as ascend into the mountains, so as to 

 give higher ground for hope of hardiness. 



V. Lewisii is a downy, pale green shrub, with short, broad sprays of 

 notably large stars. 



V. venustula grows only 6 or 9 inches high, with four segments to 

 the calyx, and sprays of white blossom emerging from the ends of 

 the shoots. 



V. diosmaefolia has the same colour and arrangement of flowers, 

 but the calyx has only three segments. It is a neat shrub with narrowish 

 foliage of bright green, making an upstanding mass which is usually 

 some 2 or 3 feet high, but may reach 15 feet. 



V. Colensoi of the Bot. Mag. and of gardens is false, but what the 

 true species might be nobody knew. It is V. Hillii, Col. 



V. rigidula is a stiffish littlo bush from G inches high to 2 feet. 



V. elliptica has very largo elliptic leaves of pale green, on short 

 foot-stalks. The white flowers are veined with purple and sweetly 

 scented. It seems to bo V. odora (Hook.). 



V. buxifolia has the same shape of leavos, and they are similarly 

 packed and overlapping up the stiff branches, but here the foliage is 

 glossy, and the big white blooms are scentless. 



V. Mathewsii makes a bush of 2 feet high or 4 foot, with goodly 

 spikes of white or purple flowers. It is sometimes called V. Traversii 

 in gardens, but is stouter and more leathery in the leaf, with larger 

 spikes as well as larger f lowers. 



V. Balfouriana came by a favour of the gods from some unknown 

 place, out of seed that was raised at Edinburgh. It is a lessened 

 V. Traversii with smaller leaves, edged with red, longer sprays, and 

 very much finer flowers of palo violel . 



434 



