34 FAMILIAR GARDEX FLOWEES. 



as in nature's market, is a delicious l)eauty wlien itswliite 

 flowers are set out like huge pearls upon a groundwork 

 of green leaves, while the birds sing from its sprays the 

 happy song that has always for its burden — 



" Spring is here, and iSummer is coming.'' 



The subject before us piroposes a question in which gar- 

 deners are interested and amateurs often perplexed. What 

 is the difference between a syringa and a philadeljihus ? 

 In gardens and books they are strangely associated under 

 the same generic distinctions, and when the large white 

 flowers of a philadelphus or mock-orange are labelled 

 syringa, the unscientific observer wants to know where and 

 how it is related to the lilac, which is a syringa certainly. 

 Nijw, between the two there is a great gulf fixed, and the 

 only bridge across it consists of the running analogies that 

 unite all plants. The fact is, a true ])hiladelphus or mock- 

 orange is a saxifrage ; that is to say, it is a member of the 

 rirder Htix'ifnuieiT, in which occur the saxifrage proper, 

 the franeoa, hydrangea, deutzia, escallonia, ribes, and, to 

 repeat it, the philadelphus. On the other hand, the lilac 

 IS an oli\'e, (jr, to speak more correctly, a member of the 

 order Olence^e, in which wo find the phillyrea, privet, ash, 

 forsythia, and the true syringa, or lilac. There are about 

 thirty orders between those two groups of plants — a fact that 

 justifies the remark above that a great gulf separates them. 



The large-flowered mock-orange, PJiiladelpJiKS r/randi- 

 Jhn-iift, is known also as P. xpeciosim and P. lulifornis. 

 It is a deciduous shrub, rising to a height of six to twelve 

 feet, with roundish leaves, and producing large white, 

 sweet-scented (lowers in the month of June. Althouo-h 

 classed with spring-flowering shrubs, the time of its 



