OCTOBER 251 



lily ? And in no blossom are they painted more purely 

 than in this autumn windflower. 



These and an innumerable host of other autumn 

 jewellery are at our disposal to furnish our gardens 

 withal, yet will they fail of half their charm unless the 

 setting is worthy of them. Straight borders of uniform 

 width are well enough for a mere collection, but far 

 more is wanted for a right floral gallery. If one re- 

 commends a background of shrubs, it is too apt to 

 suggest a dreary waste of that kind of plum which we 

 fondly call laurels (Prunus pseudo-cerasus) or a still 

 more dismal thicket of another plum which we distin- 

 guish as Portugal laurel. If your climate suffers the 

 true laurel the sweet bay, the meed of heroes to grow, 

 it is well with you ; but if not, what an array of lovely 

 things there is to choose from the frosted silver of 

 Retinospora squarrosa, the emerald sheen of Choisya 

 ternata and Griselinia littoralis (we have no English 

 names for these recent acquisitions the first from 

 Brazil, the second from Japan), the feathery grace of 

 Indigofera, the upright forms of Lawson's cypress, the 

 roseate mist of Venetian sumach, and the boldly pinnate 

 sculpture and intense colour of the stag's-horn sumach. 

 Then there is the curious Desfontainea spinosa, which 

 pretends, with some success, to be a holly during the 

 early months, till one fine morning in August you find 

 it studded with scarlet and yellow trumpets three inches 

 long. Another surprise is Rhus toxicodendron, the 

 poison oak of the States, a meek, green leafy thing all 

 summer, blazing into matchless scarlet and yellow in 



