CHAP. V. ORNAMENTAL TREES, SHRUBS, ETC. 581 



of their bloom, nothing can surpass. During the time they are 

 in bloom an occasional application of liquid manure will be 

 found beneficial, and after they have done blooming they are 

 the better for being pruned in closely. Some yield seed freely, 

 from which young plants may be easily raised ; and all may be 

 propagated more or less easily by cuttings or by layers put 

 down in the Kains. 



A writer who signs himself " Alpha " says : " All the 

 varieties are easily propagated by cuttings ; but some of them, 

 as salicifolia, Griffithi, and acuminata, are so wanting in the 

 tendency to form bushy plants, that well -furnished specimens of 

 them can hardly be obtained save by grafting them on good- 

 sized well-bottomed plants of some better-habited variety. 

 Coccinea is, judging from my own experience and observation, 

 the best for grafting upon. I also graft floribunda, which 

 although of a sufficiently bushy habit, is rather delicate, and 

 but a slow grower on its own roots. Acuminata throws very 

 large heads of bloom; and I expect that, grafted on coccinea, it 

 will form fine specimens, and be more effective than alba." * 



1. I. acuminata. A shrub five or six feet in height. Dr. 

 Eoxburgh describes it as "a very charming shrubby species, 

 native of the forests near Sylhet, where it blossoms during the 

 Hot season, and perfumes the air with the fragance of its 

 flowers." And Dr Wallich adds : " The opaque, remarkably 

 pale and glaucous leaves, the subsessile crowded corymbs of 

 large white blossoms, with white calyces, sufficiently distinguish 

 this elegant shrub from all the other species." 



2. I. alba. A small shrub, native of China, with handsome 

 rich foliage of lanceolate leaves, from three to six inches long ; 

 generally considered a variety of I. stricta. One of the most 

 choice and beautiful plants of the whole genus ; bears its large 

 full close corymbs of milk-white scentless flowers in great pro- 

 fusion during the Hot and Kain seasons, but in highest perfec- 

 tion in the months of March and October. Bears no seed, but 

 may be propagated with little difficulty by layers or cuttings. 



3. I. Bandhuca, A round bushy shrub, of moderate size, about 

 the commonest of the genus ; distinguished from I. coccinea, 

 which it resembles, by the leaves ending in a blunt oval form, 

 and by the close way in which their heart-formed base embraces 



* The Florist and Pomologist,' vol. for 1863, p. 45. 



