Some Rarer or More Tender Shrubs 



TRICUSPIDARIA LANCEOLATA. This, again, is a most 

 remarkable shrub and fairly hardy, but surprisingly 

 little known, considering that it was imported from Chile 

 by collectors for Messrs. Veitch about the middle of the 

 nineteenth century (though not distributed until about 

 1881). Originally it was called Crinodendron Hookeri, 

 in compliment to Sir Joseph Hooker, but it is now 

 transferred to the genus Tricuspidaria. Its foliage is 

 evergreen, dark and leathery and not specially remark- 

 able, each leaf being about three inches long, of simple 

 lanceolate shape and with a saw-like margin. But 

 closely set among it, hanging straight down on long stalks 

 each from the axil of a leaf, are the flowers, looking 

 like so many unopened crimson fuchsia buds ; and the 

 dark green shrub, maybe fifteen feet high, carrying 

 its innumerable bright pendants, is indeed a wonderful 

 and unique sight, a sight, too, not transitory, for though 

 the buds begin to form in the autumn they go on 

 gradually increasing in size and vividness until late 

 May days. Then they open just a little at the tip, 

 hanging bell-like. The sepals are red, the petals still 

 brighter ; out of the bell one can shake a little cloud of 

 pollen. The seed-case is at the top of the bell, its 

 column like a fine clapper, and its seeds set freely. 



Even when mature, the thick, solid blossoms seem 

 loath to fade and disappear. In fact, the shrub 



throughout its whole life is a determined and persistent 

 R* 269 



