22 WINTER FLOWERS 



exactly like that of heliotrope. One word of warning 

 plant it not among other choice things, but in a border 

 by itself; for it spreads as quickly and is as hard to get 

 rid of as any weed of them all. It will make itself a 

 home on any sunny waste piece of ground, and once 

 established, it is a joy for ever ; you and your children 

 to the third and fourth generation will never cease to 

 thank me for telling you about it. 



Another fragrant winter flower is seen in English 

 gardens, if possible, more rarely than the winter helio- 

 trope. It is 'an evergreen shrub, Azara integrifolia, 

 worthy of the protection of a wall by reason of the 

 multitude of golden blossoms which spread along the 

 under side of the sprays in January, strongly scented 

 like hawthorn. More commonly grown is the Japanese 

 Chimonanthus fragrans, also known as Calycanthus 

 prcecox, diffusing its powerful perfume at the dead 

 season of the year. One should be careful to get the 

 variety called grandiflorus, though herein nurserymen 

 have customers pretty well at their mercy, and use 

 them rather unmercifully. It is exasperating to order 

 a plant of some particular species, and to find when it 

 flowers, perhaps years afterwards, that it is some other 

 and inferior kind. Within a few yards of my front 

 door is a large bush of what ought to be the sweet- 

 scented, autumn-flowering Clematis flammula, for that 

 is what I paid for ; instead of which it has proved to be 

 a worthless, scentless weed, grown so lustily that it will 

 take half a day's work to remove it. 



Another Japanese plant, this time a valuable winter- 



