May 26, 1870] 
species, 254 are evergreens, 85 of them belonging to the 
coniferous tribe. As the author remarks, however, there 
are both advantages and disadvantages connected with 
the choice of evergreens for ornamental planting ; while 
the persistent leaves of evergreens are generally of a dark 
and sombre hue, the young leaves put forth by deciduous 
trees in the spring are of a much brighter livelier tint, and 
during the summer months add much more to the fresh- 
ness and beauty of thelandscape. It seems probable that 
the great rage for new conifers is now somewhat going by, 
and that more attention will in future be paid to shrubs 
remarkable for the beauty of their flowers or fruit. A 
great acquisition has been the recent introduction of male 
plants of the Aucuba japonica, or common “ variegated 
laurel,” which thrives in every London garden or area. 
Till recently female plants only had been known in this 
country, which consequently never bore fruit. The ferti- 
lising of these by pollen, or the planting of a male plant, 
will ensure their being covered in the summer and autumn 
with a quantity of ornamental red berries. 
There is much yet to be learnt with regard to the laws of 
NATURE 
acclimatisation and naturalisation. It appears by no 
69 
pleasure-grounds will present a very different appearance 
to what they do now. There is little doubt that a consi- 
derable number of trees and shrubs which are reckoned by 
gardeners to be half-hardy will, with a little care, grow very 
well out of doors in the southern counties of England. 
Even the Camellia requires, according to our author, pro- 
tection for the first year or two only, to become a perma- 
nent and magnificently ornamental denizen of our shrub- 
beries. 
As a specimen of the author’s style we may quote his 
description of the elegant Cupressus Lawsoniana :— 
“California, 1852. Tree 60—8o feet. Leaves in alternate 
opposite pairs, closely adpressed, of a glaucous green. 
Branchlets slender, flattened, thickly clothed with leaves, 
gracefully pendulous, the leading shoots (as in the cedars) 
drooping until the ensuing season’s growth ; cones of the 
size of a large pea, with a glaucous bloom while young. 
This is one of the most beautiful trees of a beautiful tribe. 
It is very hardy, a rapid grower, and should find a place 
in every collection. It is frequently so laden with its 
beautiful cones (which, however, have more the appearance 
of berries) that the fruitful branchlets are quite borne down 
GLEDIi SCHIA TRIACANTHOS 
means always to follow that we must look for trees and 
herbaceous plants suitable for introduction into our own 
country to those regions of the earth, the climate and soil of 
which most closely resemble our own. On looking over 
Mr. Mongredien’s list, the countries which seem to have 
furnished the greatest number of perfectly hardy trees 
and shrubs are China and Japan, Northern India, Chili, 
California, and the more southern of the United States. 
Australia and New Zealand, on the other hand, have sent 
us very few species. A very large number of new kinds 
were introduced between 1840 and 1850; and we have 
therefore had no opportunity yet of knowing whether they 
will attain with us the size that some of them do in their 
native forests. An elm-tree eighty feet high is with us a 
fine tree ; a very large number of the conifers are described 
in this work as attaining a height of from Ioo to 140 feet, 
while the Wellingtonia gigantea of California, the monarch 
of trees, rears its head to the enormous altitude of 350 or 
400 feet. Should our descendants witness their growth to 
their normal size, they will probably in many cases regret 
by their weight, like the boughs of a prolific apple-tree. 
Nothing can be more graceful or attractive.” 
Mr. Mongredien’s book should be in the hands of every 
one interested in the planting of trees—and who is not who 
has the money to spend and the space to spare? The man 
who introduces on an extensive scale a new ornamental 
tree adapted to our climate performs a service to mankind, 
not only to his contemporaries, but to his descendants for 
many generations. 
NOTES 
HERE is some welcome news from the London Guzette—‘‘ The 
Queen has been pleased to appoint the most Noble William, 
Duke of Devonshire, K.G.; the Most Honourable Henry 
Charles Keith, Marquis of Lansdowne; Sir John Lubbock, 
Sir James Phillips Kay-Shuttleworth, Bernard Samuelson, 
Esq., William Sharpey, Esq., M.D., Thomas Henry Huxley, 
Esq., Professor of Natural History in the Royal School of 
Mines ; William Allen Miller, Esq., M.D., Professor of Chemis - 
the want of forethought in their ancestors who planted 
them so near their houses ; and at all events our parks and 
| try in King’s College, London; and George Gabriel Stokes, 
