234 BRECK'S BOOK OF FLOWERS. 



'aue of the scarlet color is most brilliant, and no artist can find 

 a tint that will convey an adequate idea of its splendor. The 

 paler variety is also much admired. The flowers of this are 

 of a fine blush, shaded with red, and, when contrasted with the 

 other, forms an agreeable relief. The perfect hardiness of the 

 shrub, and the brilliancy of the flowers, must ever render it an 

 agreeable appendage to the shrubbery, lawn, or flower-garden. 

 It is generaly propagated by layering and by suckers. It suc- 

 ceeds in any good garden loam. It commences flowering when 

 the plants are quite small. It grows from six to eight feet 

 high. A writer says : " One of the most pleasing and pictu- 

 resque objects we recollect ever to have seen, was a large 

 Cydonia, whilst in full bloom, partially imbedded in a late 

 snow; the branches weighed down thereby, and the rich, bril- 

 liant blossoms, peeping through their chaste covering." 



CYTISUS. 

 Laburnum. 



A genus of ornamental trees and shrubs, of which the La- 

 burnums are generally well known as highly ornamental. 



Cytisus laburnum. Golden Chain. A tall and elegant 

 shrub, or low tree, which, when in bloom, is laden with long, 

 pendulous clusters of golden pea-shaped flowers, similar in 

 shape to those of the Robinia, or Acacia. It is exceedingly 

 rich and beautiful when in bloom, the last of May and June ; 

 grows from ten to thirty feet high. 



The Purple-flowering Laburnum, C. purpurea, has dull- 

 purple flowers ; grows three feet high. 



C. leucanthus has cream-colored flowers ; four feet high. The 

 Golden Chain is the most desirable of all the species or vari- 

 eties. 



There are many other fine species and varieties, of which 

 some of them are low shrubs ; all -ornamental. 



