Beautiful Flowering Shrubs 



1832, " a pretty shrub introduced to the gardens of 

 Japan from China, " said the renowned botanist, Dr. 

 von Siebold, who, in his " Flora Japonica," was the 

 first to describe it. (Hence it is sometimes known as 

 Forsythia Sieboldii.) 



Of the discovery of the second, we have the whole 

 story from the finder. Some time in the " thirties " of 

 last century, Robert Fortune came from the Edinburgh 

 Botanical Gardens to be superintendent of the Horti- 

 cultural Society's hothouses at Chiswick. He was a 

 young man who combined a rare knowledge of flowers 

 with a great love of adventure, so in 1842, just as 

 China was settling down after a war, the Society sent 

 him out to the East to collect rare and new plants for 

 the Gardens, an honour with more than a spice of 

 danger about it. Keenly enthusiastic, he visited many 

 parts of China and was very successful in his finds. 

 On one occasion, sailing on the river Min to the island 

 of Chusan, he was twice attacked by pirates ; his 

 Chinese crew were too cowardly to fight, and he had to 

 drive off the robbers as best as he could unassisted. 

 Arrived at the island, he visited the renowned gardens 

 the so-called " Grotto Garden " of a certain Chinese 

 mandarin, and there he first saw growing the plant 

 afterwards known as Forsythia viridissima, the Green- 

 leaved Golden Bell, a very handsome and ornamental 



bush of rich green colour. He discovered it was 



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