SHRUBS 217 



an ornament while more deliberate shrubs are making 

 up their minds to grow. On account of its drooping, 

 spreading habit it requires room to adequately display 

 its charms. In Mr. E. T. Cook's book, "Trees and 

 Shrubs for English Gardens," he says, "The Rose 

 Acacia (Robinia hispida), trained on a wall or house, is 

 as beautiful as any Wisteria, and the quality of the low- 

 toned rosy bloom of a much rarer colour. It is quite 

 hardy, but so brittle that it needs close and careful wall 

 training or other support." 



With the arrival of summer the great array of flower- 

 ing shrubs becomes noticeably depleted, but we do not 

 feel their loss so much as the herbaceous borders are 

 rapidly filling with tall and splendid tenants. But 

 there are still a few, the old-fashioned Sweet Shrub 

 (Calycanthus floridus), with its hard little brown blos- 

 soms of memory-stirring fragrance, so valuable to 

 children for tying tightly in the corner of a handkerchief 

 for the refreshment of the nose. Some people lose their 

 fancy for the fragrance of these little brown blossoms 

 when they acquire a taste for spotless handkerchiefs and 

 perfumes in bottles, but I do not lose my love for it. 

 One whiff of the spicy, exhilarating odour, and open flies 

 the gate long closed upon a joyous childhood, and with 

 the brown talisman tightly held within my palm I am 

 free to pass through into a land of perpetual revels, 

 where all wonders are possible and where faith in life 

 and its great promises is as firm as the walls which guard 



