108 IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN 



botanical description in the Bot. Mag.) ' are constituted 

 by a series of the most beautiful network, without 

 parenchyma, reduced, in short, to its vascular reticulated 

 tissue.' In more simple language, the long leaves are 

 lovely specimens of natural lacework, but, of course, it 

 is not hardy ; it requires a tank in a hothouse, and if I 

 had a hothouse I would certainly grow this. But the 

 alkekengi is perfectly hardy, and on a small scale is as 

 beautiful as the lace plant. It grows wild in many 

 parts of Europe, but not in Great Britain. Its name 

 seems to point to Arabia as another native habitat, and 

 I suppose it grows in Japan, for it is described and 

 beautifully figured in the wonderful Japanese book of 

 botany, the So moku. It may, then, be grown any- 

 where ; and I once saw a large bed of it in a vicarage 

 garden in Berkshire, where it was grown for Christmas 

 decorations j and perhaps this is the best way of grow- 

 ing it, in a bed by itself, for if grown with other 

 flowers it is apt to become troublesome, ' the roots be 

 long, not unlike the roots of Couch-grasse, ramping 

 and creeping within the upper crust of the earth farre 

 abroad, whereby it encreaseth greatly ' (Gerard). 



The physalis has detained me too long ; at a much 

 shorter length I must describe a few other fruiting 

 shrubs which are now making bright spots in the 

 garden. The low-growing Cotoneaster horizontals from 



