228 ARISTOCRATS OF THE GARDEN 



vastly more useful as garden plants. Plant-breeding 

 is full of surprises and it is often the case that parents 

 of indifferent or relatively little garden beauty by 

 judicious mating yield offspring of inestimable value. 

 Already this has happened in Lilacdom. The Hun- 

 garian S. Josikaea is perhaps the least beautiful of all 

 known Lilacs but crossed with the Chinese S. villosa 

 it has given rise to a handsome new race known col- 

 lectively as 5. Henryi after the originator, Monsieur 

 L. Henry, a gardener at one time attached to the 

 Jardin des Plantes in Paris. The best known and 

 most beautiful of these hybrids is Lutece, which is a 

 compact, fast-growing, large shrub with foliage re- 

 sembling that of S. villosa, and large, erect clusters of 

 rose-purple flowers and it is one of the latest of all 

 Lilacs to blossom. 



The oldest of Hybrid Lilacs and one of the bright- 

 est jewels in the crown of Lilacdom is the Rouen Lilac 

 which appeared in the Botanic Garden at Rouen in 

 1795. It is a hybrid between the Common Lilac 

 (5. vulgaris) and the Persian (S. persica) but through 

 an error as to its origin it was christened S. chinensis 

 — a name at once unfortunate and utterly misleading. 

 In gardens it is also known as 5. rothomagensis. It 

 is one of the most floriferous of all Lilacs and in its 

 slender branches and narrow leaves and its small 



