VIBURNUM 659 



larger. Wilson also found in Hupeh a very fine form with its sterile flowers 

 i J, to 2 ins. across. 



Var. PLICATUM, Maximowicz (V. plicatum, Thunberg). Japanese Snow- 

 ball. Under its commoner name of V. plicatum, this shrub is now well 

 known in gardens, both in the open, and as a plant forced early into 

 blossom for greenhouses. It stands in the same relation to V. tomentosum as 

 our common snowball tree does to V. Opulus, the whole of its flowers being 

 transformed into the sterile showy kind, and the inflorescence from a flat 

 umbel to an almost globose one. V. plicatum is in the very first rank of 

 deciduous shrubs, and probably if one were confined to a dozen sorts it 

 would be among them. Its flower-trusses are 2 to 3 ins. across, pure white, 

 and come from the branches of the previous year in two opposite rows at 

 the end of short two-leaved twigs. Two forms of it are offered by nursery- 

 men, viz., grandiflorum and rotundifolium. Although introduced from China 

 (where, as in Japan, it has long been cultivated) by Fortune, in 1844, it is 

 only within the last twenty-five years that much use of it has been made as 

 a hardy shrub. Young plants rooted from cuttings are apt to be injured the 

 first year after being put out, but when once established they withstand at 

 least 30 of frost without injury. Typical V. tomentosum is not, I think, 

 quite so hardy. 



Nearly allied to the above species is V. HANCEANUM, Maximowicz, from 

 China. It is distinguished by its rounder, shorter-pointed leaves, shallowly 

 toothed above the middle only. Perhaps not at present in cultivation. 



V. UTILE, Hemsley. 



(Bot. Mag., t. 8174.) 



An evergreen shrub of rather thin, open habit, 5 or 6 ft. high, the slender 

 branches clothed at first with a pale, starry down. Leaves usually narrowly 

 ovate or nearly oblong; i to 3 ins. long, to \\ ins. wide; of firm texture, 

 smooth and dark glossy green above, prominently veined and quite white 

 beneath, with a dense covering of starry down; margins entire; apex tapered 

 but bluntish; base rounded to wedge-shaped; stalk \ to ^ in. long. Flowers 

 all fertile, produced during May densely packed in terminal, rounded trusses, 

 3 ins. across, the branches of the inflorescence stellately downy. Each 

 flower is in. wide, white. Calyx smooth, with shallow, rounded lobes. 

 Fruit blue-black, oval, J in. long. 



Native of China; introduced in 1901 by Wilson. It has proved quite 

 hardy since its introduction, and promises to be a pretty, graceful shrub. 

 According to Wilson, it grows on limestone. 



V. VEITCHII, C. H. Wright. 



A deciduous shrub about 5 ft. high; young branches, leaf-stalks, and 

 under-surface of leaves densely clothed with stellate down. Leaves ovate, 

 pointed, heart-shaped at the base; 3 to 5 ins. long, 2 to 3 ins. wide; sharply 

 and widely toothed; upper surface with scattered stellate down. Flowers 

 white, uniform and perfect, \ in. across; produced on a stoutly stalked, very 

 scurfy-downy cyme, that is 4 or 5 ins. across. Fruit red, then black. 



Native of Central China, discovered and introduced in 1901 by Wilson, 

 for Messrs Veitch. It is one of the Lantana group, differing from V. Lantana 

 itself in the more remote marginal teeth, and in the calyx being felted with 

 starlike down. Wilson found it as a bush about 5 ft. high, but rare; he con- 

 siders it to be about the most ornamental of the Lantana group. 



