Osmanthus. 201 



AMORPHA. 



THIS is a genus of the order Leguminosce, and a na- 

 tive of the United States, and, though confined 

 by Nature's processes to the southern section, the 

 cultivated species thrive as far north as New England, 

 and are quite at home in the middle Northwest. They are 

 described as handsome, hardy, deciduous shrubs, with 

 graceful, pinnate leaves and many pairs of leaflets which 

 are full of pellucid dots. The racemes of the flowers are 

 in elongated spikes, usually in fascicles at the tops of the 

 branches, and the corolla is without wings and keel. They 

 are all well adapted to small shrubberies, preferring a 

 sheltered situation and doing well in any good garden 

 soil. 



A fruticosa, or the shrubby species, is better known as 

 the false or bastard indigo, from the color of its blossoms, 

 which are a deep indigo-blue or very dark bluish-purple. 

 The individual flowers are small, and, except on close 

 study, appear dull and uninteresting ; but closer inspec- 

 tion reveals the beauty of the richly colored petals as con- 

 trasted with the yellow anthers, which protrude slightly be- 

 yond the rim of the cup. When these are gathered into 

 spikes borne at the terminals of the several branches, and 

 these spikes are bunched in twos and threes, thus covering 

 almost the whole bush, they appear to especial advantage, 

 and are really beautiful. The bush itself is somewhat 

 stocky, as it sends up numerous free-growing shoots to 

 the height of six or eight feet, clothed with elliptic, oblong 

 leaves, the lower ones on long petioles and the upper 

 more nearly sessile, glabrous, and slightly pubescent. The 



