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THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



portions. Groves of this description are frequent in our older 

 settlements, where large tracts are sometimes covered with 

 perfect trees. The frequency of these groves, in which na- 

 ture appears in her wildness, accompanied with a fulness of 

 beauty which is the combined result of accident and unde- 

 signing art, yields to the landscape of the older States a 

 charm which is wanting in all the pioneer settlements. 



FOUR NEW SPIR^AS. 



BY THE KDITOR. 



Few shrubs possess more varied beauty than the spiraeas, 

 or better deserve a prominent place in every garden, how- 

 ever small. Perfectly hardy, of dwarfish habit, easily culti- 

 vated, and blooming for a long time, they eminently claim 

 the highest distinction among ornamental shrubs. Even our 

 most common species, salicifolia and tomentosa, which en- 

 liven every neglected meadow with their panicles or dense 

 plumes of white or rosy blossoms, are none the less beautiful 

 because common, and transplanted to the garden, in the com- 

 pany of their foreign co-species, suffer none by comparison with 

 some of them, and serve to heighten the elegance of others. 

 The density of their foliage is not less striking than the variety 

 in their flowers. The lovely prunifolia, in this respect, holds 

 the same relation to other shrubs that the sugar maple does 

 to other trees. No object in the whole garden is more beau- 

 ful in the autumnal months than this species. Its foliage, a 

 rich glossy green all summer, then gradually changes to a 

 ruddy hue, and dies off of a mellow, golden or amber tint, 

 which renders it conspicuous above all other shrubs. 



The whole number of species that are sufficiently hardy 

 for our climate is upwards of twenty, some of which are na- 

 tives, and the others from Europe and the East, S. trilobata 

 Reevesfana and ariaefolia are the finest of the older kinds, 

 and should never be omitted in any collection. To these 

 may be added the following, of more recent introduction : — 



