DECIDUOUS SHRUBS. 479 



choicest acquisitions to English gardens, as its flowers can be gath- 

 ered fresh daily through the winter, to decorate and perfume the 

 drawing-room. Those who have cold grape-houses at the north 

 may grow the shrub in tubs, to be kept in the open air during the 

 summer and under glass in winter. Height six to eight feet. It 

 can be trained to walls or espaliers. The name so nearly resembles 

 chionanthus that it is sometimes erroneously supposed to be the 

 same. 



CEANOTHUS, OR RED ROOT. Ceanothus. 



The American Ceanothus or New Jersey Tea-plant, C. 

 americaniis, is a wild-wood shrub from three to four feet high, well 

 covered with small racemes of white flowers from June to August. 

 The leaves were used during the American Revolution as a substi- 

 tute for tea. 



C. thyssifiorus is a sub-evergreen shrub of Upper California, 

 which there becomes a small tree bearing bright blue flowers from 

 May to November. In English gardens it is an esteemed flowering 

 shrub. 



C. velutinus, is another sub-evergreen species, native of the 

 lower hills of Oregon, where it sometimes covers their declivities 

 with almost impenetrable thickets. Height three to eight feet; 

 flowers white. 



THE CHASTE TREE. Vitex. 



The chaste tree of our nurseries is the V. agnus castus. A de- 

 ciduous shrub, native of South Europe. The leaf is composed of 

 five to seven slender leaflets joined at a common centre like those 

 of the Pavia family. They are aromatic, but not agreeably so. 

 Flowers in September, small, bluish-white, rarely reddish-white, 

 in loose terminal panicles, from seven to fifteen inches in length, 

 and of an agreeable odor. Height eight to ten feet. The V. a. 

 latifolia is a variety with broader and shorter leaflets, and flowers 

 always blue. The cut-leaved chaste tree, V. hicisa, is a newer 



