106 MY SHRUBS 
R. bracteata, Macartney’s Rose, flowers in autumn, when roses 
are growing scarce, while, to name two more from my little group 
of the species, there are R. nitida, a charming dwarf from North 
America, decorative all the year round, and R. xanthina, from 
Afghanistan—a distinctive yellow species with glaucous foliage. 
Acquire these, and you will remember me in your wills. They 
are really more interesting than gardeners’ hybrids, and also more 
beautiful. Our taste for the plump monsters from the rose border 
is Mid-Victorian, and we must struggle back to the more refined 
and distinguished species. I mark a laudable improvement in 
the chrysanthemum already. The mop-headed giants are doomed, 
and we begin to cultivate a flower of greater distinction and 
intrinsic beauty. Compare a good group of single chrysanthemums 
with a stage of prize-taking giants, and you will instantly perceive 
which has the better excuse for existence. 
Rubus is a fine family for a cool and shady garden. I have 
but half a dozen, and also grow R. phenicolasius, the Japanese 
wine-berry, because one highly placed of the household loves its 
scarlet fruits. But best I like R. deliciosus, a beautiful shrubby 
bramble from the Rocky Mountains, with large, pure, white flowers in 
early spring. R. nutkanus, a North American, is a rapid grower with 
very large white flowers ; R. odoratus has red flowers, and R. spec- 
tabile approaches magenta. R. australis is a strange New Zealander, 
all thorns and no leaves—a wild tangled mass of ferocious vegeta- 
tion like nothing else in my garden. ‘They call it the “‘ Wait-a-bit ” 
and the “ Bush Lawyer” in its home—good names, both. This 
has not opened its little, pale pink, fragrant blossom with me, nor 
has another variety (with leaves) of the same species. R. arcticus 
is a herbaceous mite and vanishes in winter ; while of other good 
