DESIRABLE NATIVE SHRUBS 225 



variety of plants worth cultivating for their beauty. These plants, as 

 a rule, will not thrive east of the Rocky Mountains, and this fact alone 

 will guarantee California an appearance different from all the rest of 

 the United States. * * * Surely the most cultivated people of Cali- 

 fornia must realize that there is something more refined than miles 

 of scarlet geraniums, acres of callas and millions of crotons and cannas. 

 Think of the noble Monterey Cypress and all your pines, firs, and red- 

 woods, which are the wonder and glory of the world. Think of your 

 Christmas berry, a finer plant than the old world holly. Such plants 

 and others should be dominant in California landscape and gardens, 

 instead of the gaudy plants of foreign climes, which make California 

 seem an imitation of other lands." 



We are glad to admit the claim for the sake of those whose tastes 

 may delight in the undertaking outlined, but as a principle of faith 

 and practice in California gardening generally it does not appeal to us. 

 California native plants are grand. They are worthy of all honor and 

 of the increasing attention which they are commanding in our newer 

 landscape architecture and in amateur gardening, but for greater 

 variety of forms and more abundant color, for quick growth and de- 

 velopment of bloom and for easy culture, we need to give increased 

 attention also to the good things which come to us from the outside world. 

 And it should not be forgotten that it is to California's adaptability 

 to the growth of a great and diverse exotic flora, even more than to the 

 unique style of her native plants, that the recognition of her difference 

 from all the rest of the United States is due. 



But while we cling resolutely to our miles of red geraniums and the 

 multitude of other showy exotic shrubs which one will find in public 

 and private places all through the valleys and mesas of the state, we 

 do not undervalue the wealth of our native shrubs although we are 

 not able to enumerate the items of that wealth. The reader who has 

 thirst for that complete knowledge must seek it in the botanical 

 treatises mentioned in the footnote on page 8. Others, whose desire is 

 to know the most striking of the native shrubs which have already 

 been employed in California gardens to greater or less extent, will be 

 interested and edified by the compilation which we shall undertake 

 from the writings* of Mr. Theodore Payne of Los Angeles, whose 

 enterprise in making such growths available to planters is commend- 

 able: 



SUGGESTIONS OF DESIRABLE NATIVE SHRUBS. 

 The California Lilacs. There are many species of Ceanothus, which 

 in early spring present a most charming appearance on many of our 

 hillsides, with their long sprays of delicate, fragrant flowers, ranging 



transactions and Proceedings California Association of Nurserymen, 1912 and 

 1913. H. W. Kruckeberg, Secretary, Los Angeles. 



