36 MY SHRUBS 



Cydonia flowers and fruits with abandon. I have a crimson, 

 a scarlet, a pink, and a white. The last is a superb little rock 

 shrub, and never fails to deck its boughs with orange-coloured 

 fruits when autumn comes. C. Maulei, from Nepaul, has a dis- 

 tinctive, brick-red bloom. There are nurserymen who will tell 

 you that its apples are edible. One would like to see them proving 

 their words. Few more beautiful flowering things exist, by the 

 way, than C. vulgar is ^ the quince. 



I have missed Crinodendron hookerianum y which you may call 

 Tricuspadaria hexapetala if you prefer to do so. It is among the 

 noblest shrubs, and still far too rare in gardens. From the 

 dark evergreen foliage, the crimson flowers depend waxlike and 

 very brilliant. This splendid Chilian attains to great size, and 

 sets fruit in our gardens. No worthier shrub could stand for 

 ever linked to the august name of Hooker. C. dependens has 

 white flowers in the eyes of the nurserymen ; but these poets are 

 gifted with a sense of colour denied to many of us purblind 

 amateurs. 



