514 ENKIANTHUS -EPHEDRA 



Standish. But little known in gardens yet, it is easily distinguished by its 

 white flowers on smooth stalks. It blossoms in April, and its leaves turn a 

 beautiful golden yellow in autumn. 



E. SUBSESSILIS, Makino. 



(Andromeda nikoensis, Afaximowicz.) 



A deciduous shrub of bushy habit, 3 to 8 ft. high ; branchlets bifurcated or in 

 whorls, smooth. Leaves produced in a rosette at the end of the twig ; oval to 

 obovate, f to i^ ins. long, about half as wide ; tapering to a very short stalk ; 

 abruptly pointed, finely toothed ; dark dull green above, with white hairs on 

 the midrib ; paler beneath, and with darker, longer hairs along the midrib. 

 Flowers produced in late May in slender, nodding, downy racemes, i^ to 2 ins. 

 long, carrying six to twelve blossoms. Corolla pitcher-shaped, white, {\ in. 

 long, much contracted at the mouth, where are five short recurved lobes ; calyx 



ENKIANTHUS JAPONICUS. 



lobes ovate, pointed, ^ in. long, edged with hairs ; flower-stalks slender, f in. 

 long, smooth except at the base ; seed-vessel egg-shaped, ( \ in. long. 



Native of Japan ; collected in the Central Province by Maries in 1878 ; 

 introduced to cultivation by Prof. Sargent in 1892, from the Nikko Mountains. 

 It is hardy at Kew, but slow-growing. It has not much beauty of flower, but 

 its foliage turns bright red in autumn. To some extent it resembles 

 E. japonicus, having the same white pitcher-shaped corolla, but it is smaller 

 and has not the five rounded protuberances at the base as in japonicus ; the 

 inflorescence too is racemose instead of fasciculate. 



EPHEDRA. SHRUBBY HORSE-TAIL. GNETACE^E. 



A group of curious shrubs, sometimes climbing, with a mode of 

 growth and branching resembling that of horse-tail (Equisetum). They 

 have little garden value, and are rarely seen except in scientific collections. 

 The older parts of the plants are truly woody, the younger parts very 

 pithy; the branchlets slenderly cylindrical, rush-like, dark or greyish 



