460 DECIDUOUS SHRUBS. 



Fie. 156. 



THE LILAC. Syringa. 



The lilac among shrubs in this country is like the maple among 

 trees, the most common and the most indispensable. Many home 

 yards are made incongruous medleys of expensive novelties in flow- 

 ers and shrubs which might have been more nobly adorned with 

 masses of well-selected lilacs alone. The home of our poet Long- 

 fellow, in Cambridge, Mass., is a fine example of the simple beauty 

 of such groups ; a few masses of lilacs and some ancient elms 

 being all its sylvan decoration. . 



The lilac is indigenous in Persia and the valley of the Danube. 

 Some of the species grow to the height of twenty feet. The com- 

 mon white, S. alba, and purple, S. vit/garis, and their varieties, are 

 stout upright growing shrubs, usually higher than their breadth. 

 They may easily be trained into tree-form if care is taken to plant 

 single stems with well-balanced roots, encouraging them to branch 

 low, and pruning all suckers away as soon as they appear. All the 

 lilacs tend to the bush form, and except where fine single speci- 

 mens are desired for their novelty, it is not advisable to meddle 

 with this tendency, but rather to encourage it by heading back at 

 the top, so as to keep the bottom of the bush from growing scanty- 

 foliaged and " scrawny." The lilac may be grafted on the white ash. 



The Persian lilacs, S. persica (called by some Siberian lilacs), 

 have smaller leaves, darker colored blossoms, and slenderer 

 branches than the common lilac. We have seen a specimen in 



