222 SOME FLOWERING SHRUBS 



Wicklow only to see a bush of Rhododendron Falconeri 

 at Kilmacurragh, some thirty feet high, with great 

 leathery leaves a foot long, their under surfaces russet 

 like peau-de-suede, and hundreds of trusses of creamy 

 flowers. 



One need not go so far as Ireland. Last spring I spent 

 a morning, never to be forgotten, in a wood near Hoik- 

 ham in Norfolk. Originally all oak, it had grown for a 

 century or more when it was heavily thinned thirty or 

 forty years ago. Then the wind got in and made some 

 wide clearings, which were planted up with American 

 and Asiatic conifers, and all along the open floor were 

 dotted Sikkim rhododendrons. These have developed 

 their true habit, as they cannot do on bare lawns. Great 

 tawny stems, loose-branching, climb among the oaks; 

 wherever the sun strikes them, they burst into foliage 

 of glossy myrtle green and pour forth cataracts of flower, 

 often deliciously fragrant. Such an effect is not wrought 

 in a day or a decade; but neither was Rome, nor any- 

 thing else that is worth having. Half a lifetime is not 

 too long to wait for the reward of seeing such a wood- 

 land as this in the spring sunshine, with all its English 

 verdure and flower-carpet as a setting for curtains of 

 blossom, five-and-twenty feet high. 



Among the hardier species I would commend Barba- 

 tum and Thomsoni, with scarlet flowers, the former in 

 March, the latter in May; Shilsoni, a hybrid between 

 these two ; Smirnowi, a free flowerer when young, purple, 

 in April; Aiwklandi, with white flowers and rosy bark; 

 Campanulatum, lilac flowering in April; Falconeri, 

 noblest of all in foliage, except Argenteum, which only 

 thrives in the mildest districts; Hodgsoni, with rose- 



