Beautiful Flowering Shrubs 



" the apothecaries of our countrey call it Mezereon, but 

 wee had rather name it Chamalea Germanica or Dutch 

 Mezereon." Other names that it has borne at dif- 

 ferent times are Lady Laurel, Spurge Olive, Spurge 

 Flax, Flowering Spurge, Dwarf Bay, and Mesilion, the 

 countryside variant of its usual name. Mezereon, that 

 quaintest of names, is derived from the old Persian 

 name Madzaryon, meaning " destroyer of life," because 

 all parts of the shrub are poisonous. 



An old-fashioned little shrub, not more than four 

 or five feet high, it was once in every garden, but its 

 popularity somewhat waned as its medicinal reputa- 

 tion diminished. However, it is now rapidly coming 

 back into favour, and deservedly so, for at that bleak 

 moment when winter is beginning to yield to spring 



it is 



"Though leafless, well attired and thick beset 



With blushing wreaths investing every spray." 



(Cowper.) 



In other words its rose-purple flowers break very early 

 into bloom and stalkless and massed together clothe 

 the tops of the bare branches as with a garment, and 

 give a warm gay touch when the garden most needs 

 it. Well has it been called " one of the spring gems 

 of the year." On probing among the flowers 

 one discovers that they are not set singly upon the 

 branches, but are in little spreading bunches of three 



