MY SHRUBS 99 



Here, where I dwell on a limestone crag, the Rhododendron 

 demands peat, and if the peat bed be lifted up above the limestone, 

 instead of buried in it, so much the better. Peat graves with 

 walls of the local soil are dangerous. It is wiser to make peat 

 mounds into which the lime cannot percolate during the rainy 

 seasons. 



I have some fifty rhododendrons, and my favourite plant of 

 all the garden is R. campy locarpum. From an elevation of 14,000 

 feet on the Sikkim Himalaya comes this precious shrub. It stands 

 7 feet high, and in early May the bud breaks a rich orange-red and 

 opens into clusters of loose, butter- coloured bells of wax-like 

 substance and most perfect shape, with a splash of dark ruby at 

 the bottom of each cup. It is a generous flowerer, and not seldom 

 I disbud in autumn, and reduce its promise by a hundred points 

 for the sake of the plant. I would travel to the Sikkim, and even 

 climb 14,000 feet, to see R. campylocarpum spreading its pale lemon 

 light under the mountain mists of that wondrous region. There 

 is a hybrid between R. campylocarpum and that good rhododendron 

 " Prince C. de Rohan, ^* which is a mixture of yellow and pink, 

 with the habit of the former plant. This is but an infant with me, 

 and has yet to blossom. 



R. cinnaharinum hangs out blossoms of hot, cinnabar red, and its 

 young foliage reveals a delicious, glaucous duck-green. R. Roy lei 

 and R. hlandjordiceflorum are near it, the former with most dis- 

 tinguished plum-coloured little trusses brushed with delicate 

 bloom ; and that exceedingly splendid plant, R. Thomsonii, is even 

 more striking in the same style. R, Griffithianum (Syn. Auck- 

 landii) is the superb parent of many great hybrids, including " Pink 

 Pearl, ^' Manglesii and its fine forms " White Pearl " and GaunU 



