248 ON FLOWERING TREES AND SHRUBS. 



the vigorous growth of this tree, or the profusion of its blossoms ; 

 the specimen in the Horticultural Society's garden at Turnham 

 Green extends nearly eighty yards along the wall. This splendid 

 plant is a native of China, from which country it was brought in 

 1816. At its first introduction, and for a year or two afterwards, 

 plants were six guineas each ; but they are now to be had in any 

 nursery for a shilling or eighteen-pence. 



Next to the Wistaria may very appropriately be placed the la- 

 burnums, which, notwithstanding their beauty, are now become so 

 common as to be little valued. Some of these are sweet-scented 

 and remarkably long in their drooping racemes of flowers. The 

 purple-flowered laburnam, as it is called, though in fact its blos- 

 soms are of a dirty pink, is ahybrid between the common laburnum 

 and the purple cytisus, and it possesses the extraordinary power 

 of reproducing its parents. Trees of this kind in different parts 

 of the country have beei. Known to produce a sprig of the purple 

 cytisus from one branch, and of the common laburnum from ano- 

 ther, without any grafting, and yet each quite distinct. 



The Judas tree (Cercis siliquastrum) is another ornamental tree 

 belonging to the Leguminosae. This tree produces its pretty pink 

 flowers on its trunk and thick branches, and the flowers have a 

 slight acidity that makes them form an agreeable dish, when dip- 

 ped in batter and fried as fritters. The tree takes its name from 

 its being supposed to be that on which Judas hanged himself; but 

 Gerard gravely assured us that this was not the case as he hanged 

 himself on an elder. 



The peat-earth plants belonging to the order Ericaceae are a 

 host in themselves. The rhododendrons, the kalmias,the arbutus, 

 the heaths, and their allied species, are all so beautiful that no 

 garden should be without them. The rhododendrons, it is well 

 known, vary very much in the colour, though not much in the 

 form, of their flowers, and some of the hybrids between the Nepal 

 tree species and the common kinds are extremely splendid. The 

 rhododendrons are generally considered American plants ; but one 

 of the commonest kinds, R. ponticum, is a native of Asia Minor. 

 The number of varieties and hybrids of this species almost exceed 

 belief ; between thirty and forty named kinds are in the nurseries. 

 It has been said that honey, which Xenophon tells us produced 

 so injurious an effect on the Greeks in their celebrated retreat, 

 was produced by the flowers of this shrub ; but others attribute 

 this poisonous honey to the Azalea pontica. 



