MY SHRUBS 53 
plant. Gordonia lasianthus, the loblolly bay, my nurseryman 
gently but firmly denies me, though I believe the superb thing 
would do in half shade with camellia. It grows among the swamps 
of South Carolina. G. pubescens, from North America, must be a 
splendid shrub when prosperous, but I have never seen any of 
the clan. G. anomala, with yellow flowers, would have to be 
taken in during winter, for it is a sub-tropical Asian. 
Grabowskya glauca is another stranger to me. It is a Peruvian 
evergreen, has rambling, climbing habits and blue flowers. This 
I shall secure for the sake of its ridiculous name. Not that Mr. 
Grabowsky was ridiculous, or a rambling climber. This excellent 
apothecary flourished in early Victorian times, when nobody was 
ridiculous. 
Grevillea sulks with me, and will not perform. ‘It is a most 
pleasing circumstance,” says Curtis, “‘ when plants afford char- 
acters by which they may with certainty be distinguished.’ That 
depends upon the characters. For instance, you can with cer- 
tainty distinguish my Grevillea thyrsoides from all others by the 
fact that it refuses to blossom. Its red flowers ought to flash, 
off and on, all the year round, but they never flash at all. G. 
sulphurea died after flowering, and now I want that admirable wall 
shrub, G. pendula, with white blossoms and a beautiful habit. I 
do not find this desirable plant in dictionaries or catalogues, but 
I can find it on a wall in one of our great West Country gardens 
within a walk of me. ‘There, too, grows the specimen of the 
Guevina avellana 1 have already blessed. It is a tree forty feet 
high, with glossy evergreen leaves and cherry-coloured fruits 
in late autumn. Chili can hardly hold a more splendid specimen. 
Certainly England does not. Guevina avellana is deliberately 
