SHRUBS 119 



had to know about a lilac was that it was either 

 white or purple; nowadays there are double and 

 single ones, with enormous trusses and such fancy 

 names as Comte Horace de Choiseul and Souvenir 

 de Louis Spaeth. White has cream and yellowish 

 shades, while purple is varied by hues styled red, 

 blue, lavender, lilac and violet. Lilacs, too, may 

 be Hungarian, Persian or Rouen and you must 

 not say lilac but syringa. Once upon a time syringa 

 meant the white flower which is called mock orange 

 in its larger form. Now you have to say phila- 

 delphus for mock orange, and there are double 

 and single named kinds. Snowball is viburnum; 

 if you know a dozen species you are not through 

 with the cultivated list. The old pink and white 

 weigelas have a host of variants, altheas go by 

 name instead of color, spirea and hydrangea spe- 

 cies have multiplied and you are obliged to ex- 

 plain sometimes which one of four forsythias you 

 mean. 



So, before ordering even these familiar flower- 

 ing shrubs, study the catalogue for a line on the 

 improvements and variations of the type; better 

 still, visit a nursery in the blooming season. Study, 

 in particular, the new lilacs, altheas, weigelas and 

 deutzias, the unfamiliar viburnum, spirea and hy- 

 drangea species, the variety of bush honeysuckles 

 and the double mock orange. The althea, or rose 

 of Sharon, which is being developed largely in 

 the double forms, ought to be on every place, as 

 it blooms later than most shrubs. 



