MY SHRUBS 51 



flowers and scarlet fruit ; but as it ascends to fifty feet high when 

 prosperous, this would seem not everybody's fuchsia. The genus 

 honours Leonard Fuchs, a German botanist of distinction, and it 

 is interesting to note the " Botanical Magazine's " hand-painted 

 picture of F. coccinea, judged to be a subject for a stove when first 

 introduced in Kew from Chili in 1788, but now the most popular 

 of garden shrubs. 



Gaultheria nummularioides and G. trichophylla are the most 

 interesting of this family. The latter, with large amethystine blue 

 fruits and pretty pink bells, increases here in peat ; the former, 

 with white blossoms and scarlet berries, will not prosper with me 

 in sun or shade. Both are Himalayans, but their needs are different. 

 Neither do the other Gaultherias, save the robust G. shallon, go 

 forward much with me. 



Gaylussacia, of the vaccinium order, makes but a mean show, in 

 a peat bed. Its berries, though they have some reputation in 

 North America, are neither sweet nor agreeable here. Beside it 

 the little Genista sagittalis, with peculiar winged and jointed limbs, 

 increases and flowers freely. I have the white broom too ; and, 

 in a cold house, treasure that monarch of the genus, G. monosperma. 

 This splendid Spaniard I saw for the first time at San Remo, 

 where its fragrance filled a large garden and its silver-green graces 

 were almost concealed under a shower of white flowers. There is 

 a touch of pale chocolate in the heart of each blossom, and the 

 fragrance so fresh and clean is not exceeded by any growing 

 thing. In Spain and Morocco this shrub is used to strengthen the 

 sandhills ; in England, I fear, it cannot be counted on to succeed at 

 all out of doors. It is tender, and flowers much too early for safety. 

 Give it, therefore, a cold, dry, airy house, and a bed of peat and 



