MY SHRUBS 109 



only the Siberian S, racemosa, a pleasant, scarlet-fruited shrub 

 for a spare corner. 



Santolina chamcecyparissus, the fragrant Cotton Lavender, 

 makes a good silvery mass with rayless yellow daisies rising above 

 it in summer time ; but the North American grease wood, Sarco- 

 batus vermicutaluSy has no obvious charm, and will soon be called 

 upon to leave me in favour of something more entertaining. 

 Sarcococca ruscifolia is a better thing. This little evergreen from 

 China decks itself with fragrant white flowers, which peep effectively 

 from the dark foliage in January — a time when sweet white flowers 

 are scarce. The scarlet fruits are then ripe also. 



Satureia montana, the Winter Savory, is a neat little labiate, 

 with spikes of pale purple flowers above the close evergreen foliage. 

 There is no better small bush for a rockery than this excellent 

 sub-shrub, but it seems rare in cultivation. Virgil praises it as 

 a fragrant herb to plant beside the beehive. 



Schizandra chinensis is a handsome, climbing shrub of hardy 

 constitution and deciduous habit. The leaf breaks early, and the 

 plant grows steadily but slowly on a south wall. The flowers are 

 small and white ; the scarlet fruits I have not seen as yet. It 

 affords an example of scientific nomenclature worth noting, for 

 the word is composed of schizo — to cleave, and andros — a male, 

 because the stamens are split. Comment is needless. This 

 wretched " schizo " does service again and again in botany, and 

 one often in a garden longs to know what Adam called the 

 things. He had no Greek or Latin at any rate. Perhaps, if we 

 took children into a garden and invited them to invent names, 

 we should get something more attractive than the atrocious words 

 we are called upon to suffer at present. 



