Beautiful Flowering Shrubs 



about 1860, and cast great light on the alpine and sub- 

 alpine flora of those then little-known regions. 



But, favourite as is the Daisy Tree, and specially 

 favoured because in August there are few other shrubs 

 to be found in flower, it is by no means the most 

 beautiful of the Olearias. Others surpass it in this 

 respect. Olearia stellulata (often confused with O. gun- 

 niand), for instance, has larger, handsomer blooms, over 

 an inch across, collected into loose clusters. Their rays 

 are pure white, their disc yellow. The leaves are longer, 

 too, and oval, with waved edges, and though green 

 above are white-felted below. But the greater beauty 

 carries the drawback of less hardiness, and the shrub 

 will only grow in favoured gardens. Though O. gun- 

 niana is so like O. stellnlata, its flower clusters are 

 less fine, while its leaves are larger. The latter is the 

 better shrub for a garden, as it is more compact and 

 flowers more freely. The lack of real hardiness is also 

 found in Olearia macrodonta, which can always be 

 distinguished by its handsome, big, many-pointed 

 leaves. It is very like a holly to look at, but with 

 none of that plant's defiant prickliness. Its large flat 

 clusters of white flowers with dark centres appear 

 earlier in the summer than do the stars of O. Haastii. 

 In O. ilicifolia, the New Zealand native holly, so 

 like O. macrodonta in appearance, except that the 

 leaves are much narrower, the leaf points are really 



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