Beautiful Flowering Shrubs 



A little touch of history is bound up with it. It 

 originally came to England in the form of seed about 

 1827, and was sent here from North America by David 

 Douglas, the then collector for the Royal Horticultural 

 Society, who found masses of it forming part of the 

 undergrowth of the forests on the North Pacific coast. 

 It was on this very journey, while crossing from Fort 

 Vancouver, through the Rocky Mountains, to Hudson's 

 Bay, that Douglas met Sir John Franklin returning 

 from the second overland Arctic expedition. 



5. But challenging the beauty of the " Spray Bush " 

 is another Spiraea S. lindleyana the " Plume Meadow 

 Sweet," the last of the Spiraeas to flower in the year 

 August is its best month and perhaps the largest 

 and most beautiful of them all. Its flowers are also 

 small and also gathered into clusters, but they are 

 not quite so small, and the branches of the clusters 

 are not quite so closely set together, as in the previous 

 species, and the white-flowering plumes rather suggest 

 star-studded sprays than massed clusters. Even when 

 the blossoms wither and little pale brown seeds take 

 their place, the feathery plumes make an attractive ad- 

 dition to the handsome foliage. The leaves are cut up 

 into a terminal leaflet and six or eight pairs of leaflets, 

 each leaflet narrow, tapering, sharply pointed, and with 

 edges nicked. Indeed, the whole shrub has a particu- 

 larly airy appearance. 



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