Beautiful Flowering Shrubs 



known as S. Veitchii has its leaves outlined with white 

 and is particularly formal. Skimmia Fortunei is a 

 Chinese species which Robert Fortune discovered in 

 1848 in a garden at Shanghai, originally brought there 

 from a mountain-side in the interior. It is more of a 

 dwarf than 5. japonica, and makes a good pot plant. 

 It has often been called S. japonica by nursery 

 gardeners, making confusion worse confounded in the 

 nomenclature. 



The leaves of the Skimmia are dark, leathery and 

 of simple outline ; there is none of the division into 

 three leaflets which is characteristic of the Choisya. 

 They are also aromatic. 



Soil and Cultivation. A moist loam suits these 

 shrubs best, and a certain amount of shelter is desirable. 

 As they do not require a great deal of sunshine, they 

 can be well used to fill in shaded corners. In the 

 case of Skimmia japonica, though necessary to plant 

 shrubs of opposite sex in proximity, one pollen-bear- 

 ing plant will suffice among half a dozen berry- 

 bearing shrubs. But in this country, though a certain 

 amount of fruit will result owing to the chance visits 

 of insects, it is advisable, if a large crop of the big 

 scarlet berries is desired, to assist Nature by hand 

 fertilisation that is, to take some fluffy " tail," e.g. 

 a rabbit's, and first brush it over the ripe stamens 

 of a male flower and then dust it over the female 



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