14 MY SHRUBS 



of North America, has made a splendid specimen with me, and is 

 a showy object when covered with its flower masses in October. 

 The variegated form of ^. Spinosa is also handsome. 



Of Arbutus, the austere bush, I have but the familiar A. unedo 

 — a thing very fair to see with the scarlet fruit and little snowy 

 bells, like lily of the valley, hanging side by side in the dark, 

 shining foliage. There are many species, and some fine varieties 

 for the cold house, but nothing beats the strawberry tree. That 

 nice little plant of the same order as Arbutus : Arctostaphylos, 

 the bear's grape, will not live with me. A. uva-ursi is a fine 

 dwarf shrub or trailer, but, like other good things from the high- 

 lands, cannot suffer gladly this climate. Maybe I do not grow 

 it wet enough, for a companion plant, Oxy coccus palustris, the 

 native cranberry, flowers and fruits in a bog not five yards distant. 

 There is a Nevada arctostaphylos that makes a fine shrub five feet 

 high, but I know not if it has found its way to English collections. 



With Ardisia I have done nothing. A.japonica is the hardiest, 

 but it made no show in a snug corner here, and never recovered a 

 moderate winter. Possibly, treated like certain of my favourites, 

 which are plunged in their pots through summer and returned 

 to the cold house before November, it might flourish ; but one 

 cannot do too much of this work, and on the whole Ardisia, of 

 Japan, does not appeal to me as worth it. A. macrocarpa, from 

 Nepaul, is a very notable shrub for the stove. 



Aristea, of the order oilridacece, may seem to have no place here, 

 but A, corymbosa, from the Cape, has a shrubby habit of the most 

 charming and original character, and its clusters of deep blue 

 flowers sparkle in the sword-like foliage at late autumn. It needs 

 peat and sand and a bell-glass in winter. 



