MY SHRUBS 71 



Lonicera Hildebrandti, an evergreen honeysuckle from Upper 

 Burmah, makes the rest of this race look small, and its huge 

 blossoms hang in splendid clusters amid the deep green leaves. 

 The purple bud, three to four inches long, opens pure white, 

 then turns cream colour and presently becomes orange yellow. 

 Grown on the south wall of my house, and protected as far as 

 possible at moments of undue cold, it prospers one of the most 

 striking climbers in any garden. I have but few other honey- 

 suckles, including the very fragrant, pink, L. syringantha, a dainty 

 climber in a small way, and another still more minute, but hardly 

 less sweet, L. pileata a Chinese evergreen shrub, that looks like 

 a privet, but harbours clusters of little white trumpets in Spring 

 and purple berries afterward. Of the common or garden honey- 

 suckles Gauntlett's grand L. " Scarlet Trumpet " is to be specially 

 commended, and, for the rest, you doubtless have your own 

 favourites which you would not change for mine. 



Loropetalum chinense is another plant of the tribe of Witch 

 Hazel. But the flowers are white and the shrub is evergreen. 

 It seems delicate, and a light frost suffices to pinch it ; yet it 

 makes good growth in half shade, and, if prosperous, will bloom 

 in a youthful state. The lax blossoms hanging beneath the little 

 branches are a fair sight in spring. 



Lotus peliorhynchus, the Pigeon's Beak, from TenerifTe, adds, 

 with its grey foliage and scarlet blossoms, to the glory of Southern 

 gardens, but is difficult in our rockeries. Indeed I have never 

 seen it really prosperous out of doors, save in Cornwall, near 

 Penzance, though there are inspired people elsewhere who declare 

 it succeeds with them under the sky. My own experiments have 

 failed. 



