112 MY SHRUBS 
japonica pendula. The foliage and form are beautiful, but, though 
it has prospered here for ten years, I have never seen the creamy 
panicles of flowers. SS. microphylla is evergreen, and has orange- 
coloured flowers of large size. This New Zealand laburnum needs 
a wall. “ Kowhat,” they call it there, and I have raised a good 
batch from seed that a friend despatched to me. But the plant 
is of slow growth. S. viciifolia, now in cultivation, has blue 
flowers, and makes a good shrub in the open. 
Upon the huge subject of shrubby Spireas I say nothing. It 
is a noble and a beautiful race, but they grow so large that, with a 
few quite unimportant exceptions, they are not here. My space 
is too precious and my half shade too full of plants I like better. 
Not a whisper against them ; I know not one that is not beautiful 
in prosperity ; but they are not fairly represented here, and so 
enough. 
Sparmannia africana is a notable shrub for the greenhouse 
border. This South African only needs a temperature to open 
its bunches of pure white flowers with their tassels of purple- 
tipped filaments. The evergreen, pubescent foliage is also a 
feature of this familiar pot plant. It flowers in a small size, but 
is much more splendid when it reaches adult dimensions. 
Sphacele Lindleyi is an uncommon evergreen of brisk, up- 
right habit from Chili. ‘This sage-like shrub bears lavender blue, 
bell-shaped flowers, and may be accounted quite hardy. There are 
character and originality about Sphacele, and it should win many 
friends. 
Stachyurus precox is the Japanese variety of this excellent 
plant, the other being Himalayan. Stachyurus flowers with spikes 
of lemon-coloured inflorescence in March, somewhat after the 
