16 LEPTOSPERMUM LESPEDEZA 



hairy. Leaves alternate, linear-oblong, J to J in. long, ^ to J in. wide ; 

 sharply pointed, fragrant when bruised, dotted with transparent oil-glands. 

 Flowers white, J in. diameter, produced singly from the leaf-axils in 

 spring ; petals round, set well apart from each other, the triangular calyx- 

 lobes showing between them. Fruit woody, globose, the size of a pea, 

 many-seeded. 



Native of Australia and New Zealand. It thrives outside in the south- 

 western counties ; and at Killerton, in Devon, as well as in other gardens 

 there are bushes 15 to 20 ft. high. At Kew it has to be grown against 

 a wall, and even there is apt to be killed in severe weather. Easily 

 increased by cuttings. The var. NICHOLLII, Turrill (Bot. Mag., t. 8419), 

 is a remarkable and beautiful form with carmine-red petals. Introduced 

 from New Zealand in 1908, by Capt. Dorrien-Smith ; said to have been 

 first found growing on sandhills north of Christchurch. 



LESPEDEZA. BUSH CLOVER. LEGUMINOS^E. 



Of the thirty or forty species belonging to this genus, not more than 

 half a dozen are cultivated in gardens. Many are really semi-herbaceous, 

 dying back to ground-level every winter, but sending up in spring 

 from a woody root-stock a crowd of shoots which flower during late 

 summer and autumn. Leaves trifoliolate ; flowers pea-shaped ; pods 

 roundish, flat, one-seeded, and thus very distinct from the long, narrow, 

 jointed, several-seeded pods of Desmodiums with which some Lespedezas 

 have been confounded, and which they resemble in mode of growth. 

 The species mentioned in the following notes succeed in ordinary loamy 

 soil in an open position. Where seeds are not available, the most woody 

 ones may be increased by cuttings; others by division. (See under 

 L. Sieboldii.) 



L. BICOLOR, Turczaninow. 



(Garden and Forest, 1892, fig. 18.) 



A deciduous shrub becoming in some climates a bush 8 or 10 ft. high, 

 although at Kew its stems are only annual and grow from 3 to 7 ft. high 

 during the season, dying down to ground-level every winter. Leaves trifoliolate, 

 slender-stalked ; leaflets varying in size from f to 2 ins. in length by about 

 two-thirds as much wide ; broadly oval or obovate, the midrib elongated into 

 a small terminal bristle ; the middle leaflet is larger and longer stalked than 

 the others, all being dark green above, pale beneath, and clothed sparsely on 

 both sides with appressed hairs or smooth above. Racemes slender-stalked, 

 2 to 5 ins. long, produced in the leaf-axils from the uppermost 2 ft. of the 

 stem. Flowers rosy purple, less than \ in. long, confined to the terminal part 

 of the raceme. Calyx \ in. long, hairy, the teeth not so slender and sharp- 

 pointed as in L. Sieboldii. Pod ovate, downy, \ in. long, one-seeded. 



Native of Manchuria, China, and Japan ; introduced to Europe by 

 Maximowicz, the Russian botanist, in 1856. It is not so handsome and 

 desirable a plant as L. Sieboldii, with which it has been much confounded. 

 In countries with a hotter summer than ours, the stems made each year do 

 not die back more than half their length, and the plant thus increases 

 gradually in height. In the Arnold Arboretum, Mass., it forms a bush 

 comparable with a Colutea. Flowers in August and September, 



Var. ALBA. --Flowers white. 



