Beautiful Flowering Shrubs 



found in California when he voyaged with Captain 

 Cook at the end of the eighteenth century ; while the 

 first recognition of it in the Canadian flora in 1820 

 was made by that Dr. Eschscholtz whom our gaudy 

 eschscholtzias commemorate. It is hardy and free- 

 flowering. 



Perhaps the hardiest Ceanothus grown in this 

 country is also the least beautiful, namely, the " New 

 Jersey Tea," or C. americanus. It was given its 

 popular name because its leaves were dried and used in 

 New Jersey as a substitute for genuine tea during the 

 American War of Independence. It bears clusters of 

 minute white flowers from summer to autumn. The 

 leaves are two or three inches long and of plain out- 

 line, and, unlike those of the preceding species, they 

 fall every autumn. This American Ceanothus, " Red 

 Root " or " Red Wood," as it is often called in its 

 native country, was the first to be known in Britain, 

 for it was introduced at the very beginning of the 

 eighteenth century by Bishop Compton, of London, and 

 grown by him as a rarity in his wonderful garden at 

 Fulham. 



The name Ceanothus is from a Greek word mean- 

 ihg " to cleave," and was originally used by the Greeks 

 to denote some spiny plant. It is difficult to under- 

 stand how* it has come to be transferred to this 



particular group of plants, as there is no question of 



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