CHAPTER IX 



SHRUBS AND SHRUBBERIES 



A GREAT deal of the charm of our English land- 

 scape is due to the flowering trees and shrubs with 

 which Nature has bountifully endowed us. The 

 gorse and the broom gilding our commons and 

 waste lands, the blackthorn prinked in white in 

 lagging spring, the wild cherry and the pink- 

 blossomed crab, the snow of hawthorn in early 

 June, the brier rose and arching sprays of bramble, 

 lovely in leaf and crimpled flower and clustering 

 fruit, are but a few of these that are dear to every 

 British heart. No less do our affections cling to 

 the common lilac the blew pipe tree of other days 

 and laburnum, syringa and flowering currant, 

 which, though not wild, are yet such old inhabit- 

 ants of even cottage gardens that we have long 

 forgotten, if ever we knew it, that once they were 

 rare. 



Most of the shrubs and flowering trees of earliest 

 introduction were south European or Persian in 

 their origin ; but of more recent years northern 

 India, China and Japan, America and greater Bri- 

 tain beyond the seas have sent us countless numbers 

 equally fine, which are either quite hardy or are 

 becoming gradually reconciled to the change of 



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