68 
NEW TREES AND SHRUBS FOR ENGLISH 
PLANTATIONS * 
ITHIN the last twenty years a complete revolution 
has taken place in the character of our out-of-door 
planting of ornamental trees and shrubs; trees which 
twenty years ago were rarities that a lover of arboriculture 
would go miles to see, are now to be met with in every 
gentleman’s shrubbery or lawn with any pretensions to | 
artistic arrangement. A really good hand-book was 
greatly wanted, to enable a planter to choose the species 
best suited to the climate, and best adapted to the special 
circumstances of his own particular estate. Sucha hand-. 
book Mr. Mongredien’s “ Planter’s Guide” proposes to 
furnish, and to a great extent successfully. 
the book is admirable. We first have a list of 621 species 
of trees and shrubs, “selected from the large multitude 
The plan of | 
NATURE 
| Alay 26, 1870 
the manner in which this programme is carried out, we 
certainly find defects, as might be expected in a work 
which covers so much ground ; but the defects are such 
as the author is sure to have brought under his notice, 
and which may easily be remedied in a second edition. 
Thus, although the list seems an extensive one, we miss 
many species, either old favourites or newly introduced, 
which ought to have hada place in it for their beauty or 
their useful properties : such as, among flowering shrubs, 
the Berberis aquifolium, a desideratum in every shrubbery, 
from its early flowering and the beautiful gloss of its 
evergreen ieaves; 2B. vulgaris, the scarlet fruit of which 
is one of the most beautiful ornaments for the table ; and 
the butcher’s broom, Ruscus aculeatus, very easy of culti- 
vation, and striking from the weirdness of its appearance, 
and the very peculiar growth of its flowers : and among 
climbing-plants, the common hop, used in some of the 
ABIES PINSAPO 
which from time to time have been introduced from all 
parts of the world, and of which the vast majority are 
not worth cultivation for ornamental purposes.” A brief 
description accompanies each name, with instructions as to 
the best aspect or position, and other needful particulars. 
These 621 species are then looked at from different points 
of view, and in the second part are classified accordingly : 
first, as to their height, then as to their foliage, next as 
to their flowers, and finally as to their fruit. Furthermore, 
we have selected lists of species remarkable for singularity 
of aspect, for rapidity of growth, suitable for hedges, 
thriving under the drip of trees or in the smoke of cities, 
adapted for different soils, &c. On looking closer into 
* “Trees and Shrubs for English Plantations;a selection and description of 
the most ornamental trees and shrubs, native and foreign, which will flourish 
in the open air in our climate.” By Augustus Mongredien, With Illustra- 
tions, (London: Murray, 1870.) 
BIOTA PENDULA 
London parks in a very graceful manner to cover the . 
stems of the poplar-trees. The list of plants thriving in 
the smoke of cities might also have been more than 
doubled by any of the author's friends who happen to have 
a London suburban garden. The illustrations interspersed 
here and there are very pretty ; the frontispiece, however, 
a magnificent specimen of Avaucaria imbricata, is un- 
fortunate. If really taken from that tree, and not from 
another species of Avaucaria not mentioned in Mr. 
Mongredien’s list, it is very badly drawn. 
The introduction from China, about thirty years since, 
by Mr. Fortune, of a number of perfectly hardy ever- 
green conifers, previously unknown in this country, set the 
fashion among gardeners and planters strongly in that 
direction ; and the proportion of this class, recommended 
in the “ Planter’s Guide,” is very large. Out of the 621 
