MY SHRUBS 69 
but not seldom a plant that is one long nuisance in a pot will 
become as amiable as you please out of doors. Leschenaultia 
are a little folk, and might surely repay our attention. I have 
two plants of L. biloba major, whose beautiful flowers—something 
between a blue butterfly and a lobelia—crown the heathery 
foliage in sparse corymbs. L. formosa is scarlet. I do not hear 
of it in cultivation. My specimens flower in spring, and then are 
plunged in a peat bed until the late autumn. 
Leucadendron argenteum has perished in a snug corner. | 
feared that it would, though it could not have been treated better 
ina nursing home. It is a most beautiful tree, of the Proteacez 
order, with leaves like dull silver. Even such a small specimen 
as mine, six feet high at death, added to the joy of the garden 
by its rare distinction, and I miss it much. 
Leucocyclus formosus is a neat little composite shrub for the 
rockery, with beautiful grey serrated foliage, like feathers, and 
daisies for flowers. 
Leycesteria formosa, a monotype, is of course common enough, 
yet too graceful and interesting to be hackneyed. From the 
temperate Himalayas it descends, and its strange white flowers 
in chocolate bracts are freely born on bending shoots. It is 
almost evergreen in our gardens, and increases very rapidly. 
Pheasants eat the fruits, it is said (probably as a corrective after 
a debauch on mangel), but in my garden the berries turn into 
little plants, and generally choose most impossible places for 
their germination. 
Libonia used to be popular as a greenhouse shrub, but I think 
it has gone a little out of fashion. This Brazilian lacks charm 
and is no use save under glass. 
