MY SHRUBS 67 
tracted from the bark. I have partaken of a decoction of sassafras 
myself, but it did not renew my youth, and could by no possibility 
have been mistaken for beer. Otherwise I should have persisted 
with it. L. Benzoin, known also as Lindera Benzoin, the Benja- 
min bush from North America, is another neat, deciduous laurel, 
with aromatic scent and inconspicuous yellow flowers which 
appear before the foliage. 
For Lavatera I care not. It grows enormously and straggles 
helplessly. Anon it becomes top-heavy, and sags in the ground. 
It is a hysterical, excitable plant, always growing and crying for 
attention. 
Lavendula dentata, grown by a friend from La Mortala seed, 
seems hardy, and is an ornamental early flowering bush ; while 
L. Stechas, another Mediterranean lavender, is said to be 
quite hardy. JL. vera I collected in a neat form upon the hills 
above Grasse. The blossom is smaller and paler than gardeners’ 
varieties. ‘The white-flowered lavender, too, is good to grow. 
Ledum latifolium is a little shrub from Canada and Green- 
land’s icy mountains. The flowers are white in close umbels 
and the whole plant seldom exceeds eighteen inches in height. 
This Labrador tea is a peat lover, and would probably enjoy 
more sunshine than it receives with me. A good specimen is a 
beautiful sight. Mine improves yearly in a bed of Tiarella. 
Ledum (or Leiophyllum) buxifolium likes shade, and succeeded 
well for some years with me; then the exceedingly charming 
dwarf passed. 
Leonotis leonurus, the Lion’s ear combined with the Lion’s 
tail—named a phlomis of old—is a remarkable and splendid 
shrubby thing from the Cape of Good Hope. Its whorls of 
