1210 



ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. 



PART in. 



upwards in good free soil ; and, though it naturally 

 sends up abundance of suckers in every direction, 

 so as to form a dense mass of stems, yet, when 

 these are cleared away as they appear, and only 

 one stem left, it may be trained to form a very 

 handsome small tree, beautiful when in leaf, and 

 preeminently so when in flower. The rate of growth 

 is considerable, varying, according to the soil and 

 situation, from 18 in. to 3 ft. in a year, for the first 

 five or seven years. The duration is not great; 

 probably between twenty and thirty years, in rich 

 soils, and between forty and fifty in such as are 

 dry and comparatively poor. Plants which are 

 never allowed to produce suckers of any size, and 

 in which the bunches of flowers have been thinned 

 out, ripen seeds ; and these, according to Miller, 

 produce plants which are true to their varieties. 

 The common lilac was, till lately, thought to be 

 exclusively a native of Persia; but, within the last few years, it has been found 

 by Dr. Baumgarten in Transylvania. (Flora Transyl. y \o\.\. p. 16.) The blue and 

 the white varieties were cultivated by Gerard and Parkinson, in 1597, under 

 the name of the blue-pipe and white-pipe ; and, apparently, confounded with 

 Philadelphia, which was also called pipe tree. The first time the lilac was made 

 known to European botanists was by a plant brought from Constantinople to 

 Vienna, by the ambassador Busbequius, towards the end of the 16th century. 

 From the plant being very showy, of the easiest culture, and extremely hardy, 

 it soon spread rapidly throughout the gardens of Europe. In some parts of 

 Britain, and various parts of Germany, it is mixed with other shrubs, or 

 planted alone, to form garden hedges ; and, as a proof of its hardiness, we 

 may mention that there are hedges of it by the road-sides, in the neighbour- 

 hood of Ulm and Augsburg, in the elevated, and consequently cold, region of 

 Bavaria. Mixed with sweet briars, sloe thorns, scarlet thorns, Guelder rose 

 trees, &c., it forms beautiful hedges to cottage gardens, where there is 

 abundance of room. In the survey of the royal gardens of Nonsuch, planted 

 in the time of Henry VI II., there is mentioned a fountain " set round with six 

 lilac trees, which bear no fruit, but only a very pleasant smell." (Syl. Ft., ii. 

 p. 47.) Many poets have alluded to this tree ; and Cowper, in the following 

 lines, enumerates some of the kinds commonly grown in British gardens : 



" The lilac, various in array, now white, 



Now sanguine, and her beauteous head now set 



With purple spikes pyramidal', as if 



Studious of ornament, yet unresolved 



Which hue she most approved, she chose them all. ' 



2. S. JOSIKJE^A Jacq. Josika's Lilac. 



Identification. Jacq. in Bot. Zeit, 1831, t. 67. ; Rchb. PI. Grit, No. 1049. t. 780. ; Don's Mill., 4- 



P J * ' ' Engravings. Hook. Bot Mag.', t. 3278. ; Lindl. Bot. Reg., 1. 1733. ; Rchb. PI. Crit., 



No. 1049. t. 780. ; and our figs. 1057, 1038. 



Spec. C/iar. y Scc. Leaves el- 

 liptic-lanceolate, acute, 

 ciliated, wrinkled, gla- 

 brous, on short petioles, 

 white beneath. Flowers 

 purple. (Don's Mill., 

 iv. p. 51.) A shrub, 

 from 6 ft. to 8 ft. high ; 

 a native of Transylva- 

 nia, where it was dis- 

 covered by the Baron ess 

 1037 Von Josika, in cornpli- 



