Growth of naif-Hardy Plants. 107 



fill tree {Araucaria excdsci) wero last summer placed 

 in Captain Brown's garden at Lamlasli. The captain was 

 told they would not stand the winter, hut he was deter- 

 mined that they should. Procuring pieces of thick glass 

 he placed them round the plants, and put another piece 

 over them, so as to admit air in mild weather. The trees 

 remained in excellent health during the whole of the 

 winter, and would have been so still had they not been 

 transplanted in spring. They are now recovering. 



Miscellaneous Trees and Shrubs. — The Cork tree {Quercus 

 sicher), 2 feet 3 inches in girth 4 feet from the ground, 

 grows freely in the Castle grounds, Brodick. The She 

 Oak or Beef Wood (Casuarina equisetifolia), 13 feet in 

 height, grows freely in the Castle High Garden. In a 

 side border of the same garden a beautiful white Heath 

 was in one mass of bloom during the whole of the month 

 of April. It is Ih feet in height, and 15 feet in circum- 

 ference, and well becomes its name — Erica arhorea. 

 Escallonia rid)ra albiflora also flowers abundantly. A 

 beautiful white Sikkim Ehododendron, 11-^ feet in height, 

 flowers in the garden at Cromla, Corrie, but did not 

 bloom till it was thirty years of age. K p)lant of the 

 hollj^-like Desfontainea spinosa, 7 feet 3 inches in height, 

 comes into bloom at Cromla in the beginning of Jul}^ and 

 continues in bloom till December. A standard Myrtle 

 (^3Ii/rtus communis), 11 feet in height, here blooms abun- 

 dantly every year. Tliere are also plants of Elaagnus 

 reflexa variegata, Photinia serndata, Coccoloba vcspcrtilionis. 

 Azalea amcena (blooms abundantly), Euont/mus latifolia 

 aurea, &c. Pittosporum Balfii grows at Captain Brown's, 

 Lamlash. A plant of Buddleia globosa, 19 feet in height 

 and 7 inches in girth, at Whitehouse, Lamlash, was, 

 during the months of June and July, most attractive, 

 being covered with its sweet-scented orange-coloured 

 bloom. The early blooming scarlet Khododendrons at 

 Whitehouse, as also in the Brodick Castle grounds, are 

 yearly most gorgeous. Those who have only seen these 

 magnificent shrubs in the neighbourhood of towns, 

 or in places where they are exposed to much frost, have 

 no idea of what they are in Arran, where there are many 

 plants of thirty or forty years' growth in perfect health, 



