COROLINA WREN. 143 
developes its graceful branches of golden, trumpet-like, deliciously fragrant flowers. 
Often, we may cull clusters ten to twelve inches long. Another interesting small tree or 
shrub of this region is the white bay, or Magnolia glauca, with its cup-shaped, exceed- 
ingly fragrant flowers. 
We must not turn to our original subject, without having visited the gardens 
of the coast region. The friend of nature is overwhelmed with the beauty before him. 
The chief attractions are the strongly-scented tea and Noisette roses, the camellias and 
Indian azaleas. The gardens of Aiken and Charleston, S. C., Augusta, Ga., Tallehassee 
and Pensacola, Fla., are stocked with these beautiful flowering shrubs. Dr. Drayton’s 
famous garden, on the Ashley, near Charleston, is an ideal plantation, a model of 
beauty not surpassed in the United States. The ground is shaded by huge magnolias 
and live oaks, whose roots find the best nourishment in the phosphate beds which 
underlie the whole region. In 1848, Dr. Drayton planted the first camellias and azaleas 
of his remarkable collection. Of camellias there are some 300 varieties, and all are 
remarkably large, strong and floriferous. Many specimens are now trees over twenty- 
five feet high, with trunks thirty inches or more in circumference, and bearing, in March, 
thousands of flowers among the thick, leathery foliage. Of Indian azaleas there are about 
150 kinds, with individual specimens from ten to fifteen feet high and fifteen to twenty 
feet in diameter. There are many other famous trees and shrubs in the garden. ‘But 
after all,” says Prof. Sargent in “Garden and Forest,” (Vol. II, p. 129. 1889), ‘‘to 
northern eyes, the camellias and azaleas are the glory of the garden in early spring. 
From this part of the coast region all, who can, escape in summer to the highlands 
of the interior. Dr. Drayton leaves for his summer home in North Carolina as early as 
the first of May, but the azaleas are in bloom a month before, and the wealth of glow- 
ing color along the avenues and on the borders of the lawn, where these shrubs are 
massed, can hardly be imagined, while the Cherokee roses are flinging out their white 
banners from the very tops of the forest trees on the lake shore and covering them all 
over with flowers, and the magnolias fill the air with fragrance. 
“While the azaleas are in flower there seems no room for anything else, but a 
month or six weeks earlier the camellias appear to fill the garden. Last year they were 
at their best a fortnight before the great snowstorm fell upon New York, and certainly 
they can never be more beautiful than they are to-day (March 2), and have been for a 
week past. Numbers and measurements give no idea of the dazzling abundance of 
flowers among the bright green leaves and the long lines of camellias that stretch away 
in every direction, flowers single and double, and showing every tint from snowy-white 
to almost crimson. Glimpses of the shining river are caught through vistas of flowers, 
and under the moss-draped branches of oaks. The bright colors are all heightened by 
the dark masses of magnolia that rise behind them. And all this just at the close of 
February. No wonder the place is so attractive to visitors from the cold North, and 
no wonder so many of them feel a debt of gratitude to Dr. Drayton for throwing open 
all this beauty to be enjoyed by strangers.” 
This region of tea roses, magnolias, camellias, and Indian azaleas abounds in 
interesting birds. Even in January, the observer may hear from the thickets of ever- 
green camellias and azaleas the loud and cheering song of the beautiful red Cardinal. 
