SHAMROCK 



SHOEBLACK PLANT 



1663 



SHAMROCK. Half the world is sure that Shamrock 

 is the wood sorrel, Oxalis Acetogelln. The other half 

 is equally certain that the true Shamrock is white 

 clover, Trifolium repens. In the time of Spenser's 

 Fairy Queen, Shamrock was said to be good to eat. 

 This applies to the former plant, but not to the latter. 

 Moreover, according to Sowerby, the wood-sorrel is in 

 perfection on Saint I'atrick's Day, while white clover 

 is not. The wood-sorrel is sent in great quantities from 

 Ireland to London for Saint Patrick's day. On the 

 other hand, it is said that clover is the pl.ant most com- 

 monly used in Ireland. Half a dozen other plants have 

 their followers, and these are all plants with three leaf- 

 lets. Nevertheless there are those who deny that Saint 

 Patrick used the Shamrock as a symbol of the trinity. 

 These declare that the water cress is the true Sham- 

 rock. The question will always remain an open one. 

 See Dyer's "Folk-Lore of Plants." \Y'_ ]yi_ 



SHAMROCK, INDIAN. A name found in some Eng- 

 lish books for the Trillium. 



SHAMROCK PEA. Parochetus communis. 



SHAW, HENRY, founder of the Missouri Botanical 

 Garden, popularly known as "Shaw's Gardens," was 

 born at Sheffield, England, July 24, 1800, and died at 

 St. Louis, Mo., August 25, 1889. He came to the United 

 States in 1819 and engaged in the hardware business 

 until 1840 in St. Louis, where he continued to reside 

 until his death. After retirement from active business 

 he traveled for a number of years, and in 1849 laid out 

 a modest garden about his country house in the suburbs 

 of St. Louis, which, nine years later, he extended so as 

 to include some forty-five acres, about half of this area 

 constituting an arboretum. 



By special act of the General Assembly of the state 

 of Missouri, approved in March, 1859, Mr. Shaw was 

 empowered to provide for the conveyance of his 

 property, either during his life or after his demise, to 

 trustees, for the perpetual maintenance of his garden 

 as a scientific establishment. In 1885 he endowed a 

 department in Washington Universitj', known as the 

 Henry Shaw School of Botany, and on his death left 

 nearly all of his property, valued at some $5,000,000, to 

 a board of trustees for the maintenance, improvement 

 and enlargement of the Missouri Botanical Garden. 



Mr. Shaw, though not a botanist, was a lover of 

 plants for themselves and a firm believer in their in- 

 fluence in molding desirable traits in human character. 

 His garden was always open to visitors, among whom 

 he particularly welcomed the self-respecting poor. 

 Thirty years before his death he gave to the city of St. 

 Louis a park site adjacent to his garden, which, like 

 the latter, was improved under his personal super- 

 vision. 



Special provisions in Mr. Shaw's will, aside from the 

 general arrangements for the development of the garden 

 — in details of which he allows his trustees a very free 

 hand — are for an annual sermon "on the wisdom and 

 goodness of God as shown in the growth of flowers, 

 fruits, and other products of the vegetable kingdom;" 

 premiums for an annual flower show; and two annual 

 banquets, respectively for the trustees and gardeners 

 of the institution. 'These banquets are the occasion 

 for annual gatherings of men distinguished in botany 

 and horticulture. W^si. Trelease. 



SHEEP BERRY. Viburnum Lentago. 



SHEEP'S BIT. Jasione perennis. 



SHELLBARK. See Hicoria and Hickory. 



SHELL-FLOWER. See Cyclobothra; also AJpinia 

 nutans; also MolucceUa Icevis. 



SHELL-LILY is Alpinia nutans. 



SHEPHfiRDIA (John Shepherd, an English botanist). 

 JSUeagnaceae. Three American shrubs with silvery or 

 brown-scurfy foliage, two of which are in the trade, 

 being grown for their striking appearance and one of 

 them prized for its edible fruit. The leaves are oppo- 



105 



site, petioled, entire. Flowers dia?cious or polygamous 

 and apetalous, small and inconspicuous, borne in small 

 sessile or nearly sessile clusters; calyx 4-parted; sta- 

 mens 8, alternating with 8 lobes of a disk; pistil 1, 

 nearly inclosed by the disk at the orifice of the calyx- 

 tube, becoming a nut or akene and invested by the fleshy 

 calyx, forming a drupe-like fruit. In S. argentea, the 

 Buffalo Berry, the fruit is edible when made into jellies 

 and conserves, and is much prized in the upper Plains 

 region for household uses. 



The Shepherdias are hardy plants, withstanding ex- 

 tremes of cold and drought. They are of easy culture, 

 and grow readily from stratified seeds. For ornamental 

 planting, they are prized for bold positions in front of 

 shrubbery masses, where their gray or white colors 

 afford excellent contrasts. S. Canadensis is particu- 

 larly well adapted for planting on dry, rocky, sterile 

 banks, where most bushes find great difficulty in secur- 

 ing a foothold. S. argentea succeeds better in the upper 

 Mississippi valley than in the eastern states. Staminate 

 and pistillate plants of it have different forms of buds. 



The genus Shepherdia was founded by Nuttall in 1818. 

 It is said that Rafinesque's Lepargyraea, 1817, is equiv- 

 alent, and the species have been placed under the 

 latter name by recent writers. 



A. it's, green above. 

 Canadensis, Nutt. (Lepargyrwa Canadensis, Greene). 

 Spreading twiggy bush 3 to 6 or even 8 ft. tall, the 

 young branches brown-scurfy: Ivs. ovate, oval or 

 elliptic, rather thick, green above but rusty beneath: 

 fis. yellowish, in short clusters at the nodes: fr. small 

 (34 in. or less long), oval, red or yellow, insipid. Along 

 streams and on lake banks, Newfoundland to British 

 Columbia and in the northern tier of states, and south- 

 ward in the mountains to Utah. — Little known in cult., 

 but has been offered by dealers in native plants. 



2321. Shortia galacifolia (X %). (See page 1664.) 



AA. Zrvs. silvery above. 



argentea, Nutt. {L. arginfea, Greene). Buffalo 

 Berry. Fig. 282, Vol. I. Upright shrub, or sometimes 

 almost tree-form,. reaching 18 ft. tall, thorny, the young 

 growth silvery-tomentose: Ivs. oblong, cuneate-oblongor 

 oblong-lanceolate, silvery on both sides: fis. yellowish, 

 in dense small fascicles at the nodes: fr. globular or 

 ovoid, about J4 in. long, red or yellow, acid, edible. 

 Kans. to Minn., west and north. See Buffalo Berry. 



S. rotundifbUa, Parry, from Utah, is a silvery tomentose and 

 scurfy evergreen busli: Ivs. round-oval or ovate, mostly some- 

 what cordate, short-petioled: tls. stalked in the axils of the 

 Ivs., the staminate mostly in 3's and the pistillate solitary: fr. 

 globular, scui-ft^, ripening in July. £,_ jj_ 3_ 



SHEPHERD'S CLUB or MULLEIN is Verbascum 

 Thapsii.'i. 



SHINLEAF. Pyrola. 



SHOEBLACK PLANT. Hibiscus Hosa-Sinensis. 



