156 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 425. 



now in flower in the temperate house. It has inherited all 

 the good qualities of the flowers of both of its parents and 

 none of their bad qualities of habit. It forms a shapely 

 shrub four feet high, clothed with dark green, wrinkled 

 ovate leaves, and bearing loose clusters of large elegant 

 pure white fragrant flowers. Among the hybrid Rhodo- 

 dendrons grown for the greenhouse I should place this by 

 the side of Countess of Haddington, Henryamim, Kewense 

 and fragrantissimum. 



Rhododendron Nobleanum. — This and its near allies, 

 Rhododendron altaclerense and R. Russellianum, all three 

 hybrids between the Himalayan R arboreum and forms of 

 R. Catawbiense, have been beautiful here since the middle 

 of January. They were raised in England more than 

 fifty years ago, and for a long time they were in great 

 favor, but they have long been supplanted by later-flower- 

 ing hardier sorts. In a mild winter, however, such as the 

 past has been here, they are a most attractive feature of the 

 Rhododendron garden, the Kew plants, for instance, having 

 been so full of beautiful flowers that horticulturists gen- 

 erally have wondered why such handsome winter-flower- 

 ing shrubs are not in every garden. 



Rhododendron fulgens. — This is one of the most beauti- 

 ful of the Himalayan Rhododendrons and one of the har- 

 diest. It forms a somewhat scraggy bush, six feet high at 

 Kew, sixteen feet in the Himalayas, with smooth purplish 

 bark, elliptic rounded leaves dark green above, the under 

 surface covered with rust-colored tomentum. The young 

 growths are enclosed in strap-shaped imbricating dark red 

 scale-leaves. The flowers, which are bell-shaped, are in 

 dense heads six inches across and each flower is about an 

 inch across and of the brightest glistening blood-red color, 

 unequaled in brilliancy by any other Rhododendron. I 

 am informed that on the high mountains of Sikkim the 

 effect produced by the numerous bushes of this Rhododen- 

 dron when in flower is indescribably brilliant. There are 

 several big bushes of it in full flower out-of-doors now at 

 Kew. Unfortunately, there is a close resemblance between 

 this species and the comparatively worthless R. campanu- 

 latum (asruginosum), except in the flowers, and this resem- 

 blance has led to the latter being generally grown for R. 

 fulgens. So far as I know, this species has not been used 

 by the breeders of garden Rhododendrons, although in its 

 hardiness, rich color and time of flowering its claims are 

 superior to other species which have. 



Rhododendron precox. — In favorable springs, such as 

 that now being experienced in England, this Rhododen- 

 dron is exceptionally effective, producing in great abun- 

 dance its compact heads of rosy-lilac flowers in February 

 and March. The habit of the plant is not unlike that of the 

 Swamp Honeysuckles, and it resembles them in being 

 practically deciduous. It is a garden hybrid between R. 

 Dauricum and R. ciliatum, and was raised about thirty 

 years ago by Isaac Davies, of Ormskirk, in Lancashire, to 

 whose skill as a breeder of Rhododendrons we are indebted 

 for some of the best in cultivation. R. precox is as hardy 

 as the hardiest of shrubs, and it a handsome bush when 

 clothed with its glossy green Myrtle-like leaves. Its only 

 drawback is its early-flowering habit, the buds unfolding in 

 February, when they are often destroyed by frost. Where 

 it cannot be grown out-of-doors permanently it is worth a 

 place among greenhouse plants, a few bushes grown in 

 pots in the open air during the summer and protected from 

 severe cold till midwinter, when they may be started in a 

 little heat, being very useful for the decoration of the con- 

 servatory in February. 



Prunus Mume. — This plant, said to have been intro- 

 duced from Japan into France twelve years ago, but as yet 

 scarcely known in gardens here, is this year very attrac- 

 tive at Kew, the flowers being as large as those of the 

 Almond, of the same color and deliciously fragrant. It is 

 distinguished by the pale green color of its twigs, the long 

 pointed Apricot-like form of its leaves, and its globose, 

 slightly velvety fruits, containing oval convex stones. 

 When in flower the shoots are quite leafless. It is quite 



hardy and flowers a fortnight earlier than its ally, P. triloba. 

 The flowers are semidouble. It was distributed by Messrs. 

 Baltet Brothers, Troyes, under the name of P. myrobalana 

 flore roseo plena, and it has also been called P. cerasifera. 

 The Japanese nurserymen offer named varieties of it, with 

 flowers varying from white to rose-purple. It is said to 

 force well. 



Prunus dasycarpa, the Black Almond, is also flowering 

 freely this year. It is supposed to be a garden hybrid. 

 The twigs are black, and the flowers, which are an inch 

 across, are white, with rose-tinted stamens and reddish 

 calyx lobes. It seems to be a good, early spring-flowering 

 tree. 



Prunus triloba. — An old plant of the double-flowered 

 form of this grand Plum has, for many years, been one of 

 the principal attractions among trees which blossom in early 

 spring at Kew. It is trained against a south wall, where 

 it makes hundreds of wand-like shoots every year, each 

 about a yard long and clothed from base to apex with clus- 

 ters of rosy pink flowers over an inch across, double, beau- 

 tiful both in bud and when fully expanded, their beauty 

 being enhanced by the bright green of the budding leaves. 

 It is impossible to speak too highly of this plant as a shrub 

 for a south wall, for, although it is quite hardy and flowers 

 freely when treated as an ordinary bush or tree, it is never 

 so beautiful as when grown against a wall. The Kew plant 

 is on its own roots. After flowering all the shoots are cut 

 back hard, and this induces the plant to make long new 

 shoots as above described. We have no more beautiful 

 Plum from the east than this. It was introduced from 

 China in 1857 and has been known in gardens as Amyg- 

 dalopsis Lindleyi. Plants of the single-flowered form are 

 also in cultivation, having been introduced from Japan by 

 Professor Sargent a few years ago. 



Spring-flowering Shrubs. — The exceptional mildness of 



the past winter, followed by an unusually warm and sunny 



spring, has made gardens here more attractive than I ever 



remember to have seen them. Shrubs of all kinds have 



flowered profusely and earlier than is their wont, while the 



spring-flowering herbaceous plants have been wonderfully 



good. That grand shrub, Forsythia suspensa, has been 



wreathed in golden flowers everywhere ; Hamamelis arbo- 



rea has been equally prolific in bloom. All our first comers, 



which generally get nipped in the bud with frost.^have been 



a success, such as Rhododendron Dauricum, R. prsecox, R. 



Rhodora (now beautifully in bloom), Corylopsis spicata, 



Magnolia slellata, M. Soulangeana, M. conspicua, Plums, 



Almonds, Peaches of all kinds, Prunus Davidiana, which 



is better than ever. Roses are in full leaf, and the Lilac 



bushes promise to be in bloom in a few days. With bright 



sunshine all day and a temperature of seventy degrees in 



the shade on several occasions and the entire absence of 



frost, such a state of things in the garden in March is not 



to be wondered at. rrr rrr 



London. W. Watson. 



Cultural Department. 

 Pruning Shrubs. 



'"PHIS is the season of frequent inquiry as to when and how 

 *■ deciduous shrubs should be pruned. To this it must 

 be answered that the knife ought to be used at different 

 times and in different ways, according to the object to be 

 served, and that no branch should ever be cutaway unless an 

 intelligent reason can be given for removing it at that partic- 

 ular time. Every one ought to know that shrubs which bloom 

 early in the spring form their flower-buds on the wood made 

 the previous year, and that if this wood is removed now it will 

 to that extent curtail the production of flowers. With a view, 

 then, to the production of more flowering branches it is evident 

 thatsuch shrubs as the early Spiraeas and Forsythias should be 

 pruned as soon as the flowering season is over, and this will 

 induce the growth of new wood, which will produce flowering 

 buds for next spring. On the other hand, shrubs like the late- 

 flowering Tamarisks and Hydrangeas should be pruned at 

 once, if this has not already been done, in order to insure 

 flowering wood for late summer and autumn, since these 



