Peaches some woodland glade, perhaps with the stately Cordyline rising 

 and their at intervals above it, will have a peculiar fascination in the 

 Varieties gh'nting sunshine ; it looks well too with a backing of purple 

 Berberis. With these two pink Heathers may be grown the 

 white E. Arborea, so often met with and enjoyed in Southern 

 Europe, where it clothes steep rocky slopes, or forms an under- 

 growth in the woods. In its native sunshine it grows in bushes 

 eight to ten feet high, with long, tapering, white sprays, but in 

 England it has not proved as hardy as the varieties mentioned 

 above, and to flourish at all must have a warm soil and shelter 

 from cold winds. 



PEACHES 



AFTER the Almonds come the wonderful pinks of the 

 Peaches, which are now also classed under the genus of 

 Prunus, and are styled Prunus Persica. 



There are several varieties, the doubles being the most 

 effective. Flore roseo pleno and F/ore rubro plena are pink 

 and deep rose colour, and there is also a double white variety. 

 These remain always rather weakly looking trees, with slender 

 branches few and far between. The single form grows more 

 freely, but they all need plenty of sunshine, and are never to 

 be seen in England in the lovely masses which greet one as the 

 train descends from the mountain passes of Italy to the valleys 

 of the southern slopes, the flowering branches thrown up like 

 pink spray against the blue shadows of the mountains. Or 

 they may be seen as a field of pink completing the beauty of 

 some old fortified Italian town with square towers rising against 

 the snow-clad Alps. 



108 



