The Azaleas 



geousness by the Azalea. Then its delicious, uncloying 

 perfume why does not Piesse embody it in an 

 essence ? Its common name Swamp Pink brings up 

 its odour and its flame. A bed of Azaleas with a 

 foil of dark green is a sigh worth going miles to see, 

 and an acquisition worth obtaining at any price of 

 peat and culture." This is the praise given by an 

 American to an American garden, but all who have 

 been privileged to see the Kew Azalea Garden at its 

 zenith in late May will enthusiastically endorse his 

 remarks, for they too have had a vision of beauty a 

 glimpse into fairyland. 



But the hardy Azaleas in our gardens to-day are by 

 no means pure products of Nature. They are the 

 hybrid offspring of generations of crossings and re- 

 crossings, the result of a century's evolution under the 

 direction of nurserymen; their history is one of the 

 most intricate chapters of our gardening lore. For 

 their ancestors we must turn to the West and to the 

 East. At the outset, then, their parentage lay with the 

 Swamp Honeysuckles, or so-called Wild or Upright 

 Honeysuckles of North America the Flame Flower, 

 or Rhododendron calendulaceum, the Pinxter Flower, 

 or R. nudiflorwn, and the Swamp Pink, or R. mscosum ; 

 and of these three by far the largest part has been 

 played by the Flame flower, the R. calendulaceum. 

 This is a shrub usually eight or nine feet high, which 



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