146 PHYGELIUS PHYLLODOCE 



Native of S. Africa; introduced about 1850. The finest specimen 

 I have seen is in Mr Osgood Mackenzie's garden at Inverewe, in Ross- 

 shire, which in 1906 was a bush 7 ft. high. At Kew it dies to the 

 ground every winter, and needs some light covering in severe frost. It 

 grows about 2 ft. high during the summer, and flowers in September. 

 The best place for it is some Avarm, sunny corner, such as the angle formed 

 by two walls opening south. The shade of red in the flowers varies 

 considerably in depth. Easily increased by cuttings in heat. 



PHYLLODOCE. ERICACEAE. 



A small group of some five or six species of dwarf evergreen shrubs, 

 similar in habit to the heaths, but with stouter stems and larger 'leaves, 

 Leaves alternate, linear. Flowers bell-shaped or pitcher-shaped, slender- 

 stalked, produced in terminal racemes, umbel-like clusters, or even solitary. 

 Corolla and calyx five-parted ; stamens usually ten ; seed-vessel a dry, 

 subglobose, five-celled capsule, carrying numerous small seeds. 



The genus has by some botanists been united with BRYANTHUS, but the 

 general practice now is to keep them apart and to confine Bryanthus 

 to one species, B. GMELINI, Don, on which the genus was originally 

 founded. It has four-parted flowers, and a deeply divided corolla, and is 

 a dwarf, moss-like shrub from Kamtschatka, etc. ; not, so far as I am 

 aware, in cultivation at present. 



With the exception of P. empetriformis, these little shrubs require 

 rather special care in the south of England. They inhabit cool, moist 

 altitudes and latitudes, and dislike dryness in the air or at the root. A 

 cool, moist nook on the. lower levels of the rock garden, where the soil 

 is peaty, is as good a place as any. Propagation is effected in the same 

 way as recommended for Erica. 



P. AMABILIS, Stapf. 



(Bot. Mag., t. 8405.") 



An evergreen shrub about 4 to 8 ins. high, forming compact tufts of erect, 

 stiff branches ; young stems minutely downy, with erect, gland-tipped bristles 

 interspersed. Leaves closely set on the branches (about twenty to the inch), 

 linear, toothed, rounded at the end ; to in. long, T ^ in. or less wide ; 

 smooth and glossy dark green above, midrib white beneath with minute 

 down. Flowers on slender, erect, glandular-downy stalks \ to i in. long, 

 which are produced singly in from three to seven of the terminal leaf-axils 

 in early May. Corolla open bell-shaped, about J in. long, rather more 

 wide, with shallow, rounded lobes ; white tinged with pink on the lobes ; 

 sepals about ^ in. long, pointed, ciliate. Stamens and style enclosed within 

 the corolla. Seed-vessel globose, depressed at the top where it is roughened 

 with short, hardened glandular hairs. 



This delightful little shrub, one of the daintiest of the heath family, is, no 

 doubt, a native of Western N. America, but its origin is not definitely known. 

 It flowered at Kew in 1911, but owing to some misplacement of labels its 

 history was lost. It appears to be most closely allied to P. intermedia, 

 a species not at present in cultivation 



