Shrubs and Vines 
individualism that are as refreshing as a cool breeze on 
a sultry day. 
Is there any flower of the woods that the explorer is 
more glad to discover than the delicate but showy azalea? 
This is a small brother, as it were, of the rhododendron ; 
of less massive type, but far better adapted to the lim- 
itations of garden or conservatory. While the type of 
flower and leaf is closely modelled after that of the 
rhododendron, the latter has evergreen foliage, whereas 
the azalea is deciduous. 
To begin with our American species, the least preten- 
tious is the small-flowered clammy azalea, which is 
superior, nevertheless, to many other sorts in its ex- 
treme fragrance; yet it is hardly one to be chosen for 
cultivation. The purple azalea—a misleading name, as 
it has a variety of colors—also called pinxter-flower, is 
the most widely distributed, and among the most wel- 
come of May flowers, its profuse bloom burying the 
shrub in rich tints. Of more surprising brilliance, 
however, is the flame-colored azalea, indigenous in our 
territory only in the southern portion, blossoming rather 
late in summer, and one of the comparatively few con- 
tributions of the New World to Europe, which has 
adopted it among its choice shrubs. 
But in this as in many other genera, the Old World 
leads the New, which is not surprising, if in the origin 
of species the radiating centre was in Asia, the source of 
many so-called European species ; and it may be to this 
fact as well as to peculiarly favorable soil and climate 
that the region of Japan and China is so pre-eminent in 
the choicest forms and colors of vegetation. From the 
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