32 MY SHRUBS 



little cream-coloured flowers, spattered with dull purple, appear in 

 January, and C. coccinea has a character of its own, and looks more 

 like a red fruit than a flower. Its hybrids are good. 



Clerodendron fcetidum, from China, though the leaf is un- 

 pleasant, has trusses of fragrant pink flowers, while the newer 

 C. Fargesii sports white blossoms, followed by most beautiful azure 

 fruits set in pink stars. C. fallax, from Java, has scarlet panicles, 

 and makes a splendid shrub for the stove ; but more beautiful 

 still is that monarch of stove climbers, C. Baljouri, with its clusters 

 of snow and crimson from Old Calabar. Clerodendron is a fair 

 deceiver, according to her name ; but I know not in what her 

 guile consists. 



Cleihra arbor ea is the best of this genus. I think it vain to 

 attempt this out of doors, save in the most sheltered gardens by 

 the sea. In our Western river estuaries it occasionally thrives ; 

 but there always comes a sharp winter to lower it to the ground, 

 and, though it will break again from the earth, it is then a case of 

 waiting for the snowy panicles of bloom for several years. It is 

 a Madeira species, but less hardy than Pinus canariensis, the blue 

 fir, from the same favoured island. I think the rest of the Clethras 

 come from America, but I only know the common C. almfolia. 

 C. paniculata, from Carolina, sounds a fine thing, in the style of 

 the tree clethra above named. 



Clianthus, well-named from Kleios, glory the Glory Pea, or 

 Parrot Beak, of New Zealand is a very splendid wall shrub, and 

 C. puniceus, with the variety C. puniceus alba, is eminently success- 

 ful on a wall. They flower and seed freely, but since the flower 

 racemes are set in autumn, if the cold is severe, an Archangel mat 

 may well be used to protect the bud against injury. C. Dampieri, 



