Beautiful Flowering Shrubs 



unusually large, often six or seven inches long and 

 three wide ; in magnolia/olid they are even larger, in 

 fact this shrub is the handsomest of all Laurels ; in 

 angustifoUa they are particularly narrow, in rotundi- 

 folia they are rounded, and there are many others. 



In the Portugal Laurel Primus lusitanica (Lusi- 

 tania being an old name for Spain and Portugal) we 

 have one of our largest and handsomest evergreens. 

 Seen at its best in the sunshine of June, it stands 

 before us as a veritable tree, its shining dark-green 

 leaves, narrower and darker than those of the Common 

 Laurel, gleaming in the sunlight, and its slender spikes 

 of flowers rising straight up from the axils of the leaves 

 and decking it, as it were, with an overdress of dull 

 silver, so numerous, so closely packed are these grace- 

 ful flower racemes. It should not be clipped, and above 

 all it should not be crowded if it is to do justice to its 

 great possibilities of beauty. Given free play and a 

 good situation we have no other evergreen shrub to 

 match it for imposing dignity. It may be fifty feet 

 high, or it may rank among the shrubs and be merely 

 twice a man's height. The flower spikes are none of 

 them borne at the end of the branches as they are in 

 the Common Laurel, but come on the previous 

 year's wood, and stand quite erect. The flowers are 

 again of the Rose type for this Laurel, too, belongs to 



the Rose family, and the fruits are pointed purple 



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