94 NEILLIA 



Native of Western N. America, reaching from Oregon and Idaho through 

 Utah and Nevada to W. Texas. It is allied to N. Torreyi, which has a 

 more eastern distribution, differing chiefly in the more .robust habit, larger 

 leaves, and sometimes more numerous carpels. Introduced to Kew in 1897. 

 The pods are described as indehiscent. 



N. OPULIFOLIA, Bentham and Hooker fil. NINE BARK. 



(Physocarpus opulifolius, Maximowicz ; Spiraea opulifolia, Linnceus.") 



., A deciduous shrub, 6 to 10 ft. high, occasionally much more in diameter ; 

 bark smooth, peeling. Leaves usually broadly ovate and three-lobed, some- 

 times only very slightly lobed or not at all ; doubly toothed, i^ to 3 ins. long 

 and from half to fully as wide, smooth ; stalk J to f in. long. Flowers in a 

 hemispherical corymbose cluster, produced in June at the end of leafy twigs 

 from the previous year's branches. Each flower is white tinged with rose, 

 5 to ^ in. across, and borne on a slender downy or glabrous stalk. Stamens 

 about thirty, purplish. Fruit consisting of three to five pods 3- in. long, which 

 are inflated, smooth or nearly so, and usually carry two egg-shaped seeds. 



Native of Eastern N. America ; introduced, according to Aiton, in 1687, 

 and a common shrub in gardens. The largest I have seen is in Sir A. 

 Smeaton-Hepburn's garden at Smeaton, N.B., which was 30 ft. across and 

 10 ft. high when I measured it a few years ago. The shrub is a handsome 

 one in blossom, and useful for rough shrubberies where plants are left largely 

 to take care of themselves. 



Var. LUTEA. Leaves of a beautiful golden yellow when young, but soon 

 becoming green and almost of the same shade as the type. Once popular, 

 this, like others of its class of golden-leaved shrubs, is being superseded by 

 varieties which retain their colour until autumn. 



N. SINENSIS, Oliver. 



(Hooker's Icones Plantarum, t. 1540.) 



A deciduous shrub, 5 or 6 ft. high, with smooth, brown, peeling bark. Leaves 

 ovate, 2 to 4 ins. long, i j to 2^ ins. wide ; the apex long drawn out, the 

 margins set with coarse teeth or small lobes which are again sharply toothed ; 

 there is down on the main veins and in their axils at first, but both surfaces 

 become almost or quite smooth. Flowers nodding, produced in a slender, 

 terminal raceme I to i\ ins. long, carrying twelve to twenty flowers. The 

 remarkable feature of the flower is the smooth cylindrical white calyx, -^ in. 

 long and \ in. wide, dividing at the end into five narrow triangular lobes. 

 Petals small, broadly ovate, about as long as the calyx-lobes. Fruit many- 

 seeded. 



Native of Central China ; discovered by Henry, and introduced to cultiva- 

 tion by Wilson in 1901. It has flowered and borne fruit in the Coombe Wood 

 nursery, and is a shrub of elegant habit, but Mr Wilson tells me it has not yet 

 shown its full beauty under cultivation. It is very distinct in its racemose 

 inflorescence from all cultivated Neillias, except the Himalayan N. thyrsiflora, 

 and it is hardier and altogether better than that species, which has a shorter, 

 bell-shaped hairy calyx. 



N. THYRSIFLORA, D. Don. 



A low deciduous bush, of neat, rounded habit, about 3 ft. high ; young 

 bark sometimes reddish. Leaves i J to 3 ins. long, two-thirds as wide ; three- 

 lobed (most markedly so on the barren shoots), ovate with a long, narrow 



