6 HARDY ORNAMENTAL 



clusters of not very showy greenish -white flowers that 

 exhale a rather disagreeable odour. It is one of the most 

 distinct and imposing of pinnate-leaved trees, and forms 

 a neat specimen for the lawn or park, while the autumn 

 colour of foliage is particularly rich. Light loam on a 

 gravelly subsoil suits it well. 



Akebia (Lardizabalaceae). 



AKEBIA QUINATA. Chinese Akebia. China, 1845. This, 

 with its peculiarly-formed and curiously-coloured flowers, 

 though usually treated as a cool greenhouse plant, is yet 

 sufficiently hardy to grow and flower well in many of the 

 southern and western English counties, where it has stood 

 uninjured for many years. It is a pretty twining ever- 

 green, with the leaves placed on long slender petioles, 

 and palmately divided into usually five leaflets. The 

 sweet-scented flowers, particularly so in the evening, are 

 of a purplish-brown or scarlet-purple, and produced in 

 axillary racemes of from ten to a dozen in each. For 

 covering trellis-work, using as a wall plant, or to clamber 

 over some loose-growing specimen shrub, from which a 

 slight protection will also be afforded, the Akebia is 

 peculiarly suitable, and soon ascends to a height of 10 feet 

 or 12 feet. Any ordinary garden soil suits it, and pro- 

 pagation by cutting is readily effected. 



Aloysia* See Lippia. 

 Althaea* See Hibiscus* 



Amelanchier (Rosaceae), 



AMELANCHIER ALNIFOLIA. Dwarf June Berry. North- 

 West America, 1888. This is a shrub of great beauty, 

 growing about 8 feet high, and a native of the mountains 



