328 The American Flower Garden 



treatment. Of all the hosts on which it pensions itself, perhaps none 

 is better suited to it than the locust tree. Before foliage appears on 

 the locusts they are hung with long festoons of the wistaria s light 

 lavender-blue racemes looped from branch to branch and from tree 

 to tree in sweet profusion. A long line of such trees, such as one fre 

 quently sees along the boundaries of old Quaker homesteads on Long 

 Island, where the locust abounds, is an enchanting sight. Later, as 

 the wistaria begins to fade, the locust leaves appear, and by June the 

 trees are again in bloom, but this time with white racemes of their 

 own deliciously fragrant, papilionaceous flowers. As the wistaria 

 and its host have similar pinnate foliage, it is difficult indeed to tell 

 where the vine s leaves off and the tree s begins. When the white 

 wistaria is used, even the blossoms on tree and vine are similar. 



In planting the wistaria, or any vine, for that matter, to run up 

 into a tree, do not set it close to the trunk, but at quite a distance 

 from it, and layer the stem, letting several yards of it lie under 

 ground before beginning to climb. Lay it in a trench filled with 

 plenty of good food all its own. One could never hope to grow the 

 wistaria among pines, as it tosses and tumbles with abandoned 

 grace in Japan, lighting up the sombre trees until they fairly drip 

 lovely colour and fragrant bloom, unless the vines were rooted 

 beyond the harmful effects of the resinous pine needles. 



Another hard-wooded vine from Japan is Celastrus orbiculatus, 

 a relative of our less lusty bittersweet and, like it, best adapted to 

 naturalistic effects on trees or hedgerows where its generous pendant 

 clusters of coral capsules hang cheerfully all winter. 



Among woody vines none, except the wistaria, is more valuable 

 than the trumpet creeper. One wants it if only to attract humming 

 birds to sip nectar continually from its deep orange-red tubes. 

 How they dart and squeak among the flowers! But the seed that 



