MY SHRUBS 69 



but not seldom a plant that is one long nuisance in a pot will 

 become as amiable as you please out of doors. Leschenaultia 

 are a little folk, and might surely repay our attention. I have 

 two plants of L. hiloha major, whose beautiful flowers — something 

 between a blue butterfly and a lobelia — crown the heathery 

 foliage in sparse corymbs. L. formosa is scarlet. I do not hear 

 of it in cultivation. My specimens flower in spring, and then are 

 plunged in a peat bed until the late autumn. 



Leucadendron argenteum has perished in a snug corner. I 

 feared that it would, though it could not have been treated better 

 in a nursing home. It is a most beautiful tree, of the Proteaceae 

 order, with leaves like dull silver. Even such a small specimen 

 as mine, six feet high at death, added to the joy of the garden 

 by its rare distinction, and I miss it much. 



Leucocyclus formosus is a neat little composite shrub for the 

 rockery, with beautiful grey serrated foliage, like feathers, and 

 daisies for flowers. 



Leycesteria formosa^ a monotype, is of course common enough, 

 yet too graceful and interesting to be hackneyed. From the 

 temperate Himalayas it descends, and its strange white flowers 

 in chocolate bracts are freely born on bending shoots. It is 

 almost evergreen in our gardens, and increases very rapidly. 

 Pheasants eat the fruits, it is said (probably as a corrective after 

 a debauch on mangel), but in my garden the berries turn into 

 little plants, and generally choose most impossible places for 

 their germination. 



Libonia used to be popular as a greenhouse shrub, but I think 

 it has gone a little out of fashion. This Brazilian lacks charm 

 and is no use save under glass. 



Ui 



