FLOWERING TREES 179 



CHAPTER XX 



FLOWERING TREES FOR ALL SEASONS 



^T^HE Winter-blossoming trees available for planting along the 

 -■- Gulf Coast and in the lower sections of the South are all 

 beautiful and many of them are unusual. The Tea Olive, Oka 

 fragrans, is usually classed as a shrub, but, if well cultivated and 

 given plenty of room, soon attains the proportions of a tree. It 

 is the most fragrant of all our trees and shrubs, the blossoms 

 making up in sweetness what they lack in size. 



The Japanese Loquat or Medlar, Eriobotrya japonica, is 

 another tree with flowers of cloying fragrance that comes into 

 bloom in November and lasts almost until Christmas. This 

 tree also has bright yellow fruit from February until May that 

 adds much to its attractiveness. The fruit, however, does not 

 mature in the sections colder than Savannah. The ever-beautiful 

 Photinia serrulata, with its leaf buds of brilliant red in Midwinter, 

 becomes a sight to delight both gods and men when February's 

 chilling rains make life a burden and cheer much needed. It 

 is then covered with corymbs of creamy-white flowers that remind 

 one of the Summer-flowering Elders. With the Photinias, the 

 native Wild Olive, Oka americana, blooms. The blossoms of 

 this tree are individually insignificant, but when the multitudi- 

 nous clusters show among the always ghstening green leaves it 

 IS one of the most charming of the evergreen trees. Defohation 

 is necessary in transplanting this tree and as the nurserymen do 

 not handle it very often it is well to remember this in digging 

 specimens in the woods to transport to the lawns and gardens 

 which they so worthily adorn. 



