Musas appearance, and, in the autumn, the huge arching leaves of 
and M. Ensete, with their soft colouring and noble form, convey a 
Camellias very restful effect; while in a Falmouth garden M. japonica has 
fruited annually for some years, and in the same garden ripe 
citrons may be picked from the open walls. For beauty of 
form no plants can excel the graceful Bamboos, with arching 
canes, sometimes nearly thirty feet in height, set with fluttering 
leaflets, while the great Gunneras, with their huge leaves, often 
almost ten feet across, drooping over a lake-margin, are impres- 
sive in their grandeur. 
Camellias are as hardy as laurels, and their culture there- 
fore reflects no credit on the climate of Cornwall, but, though 
they will live in colder districts, their blossoms are usually spoilt 
by the early spring frosts, and they therefore have little or no 
decorative value. In Cornwall, however, the case is different, 
and the flowers are rarely injured. In the grounds of Tre- 
gothnan there must be over a thousand great bushes, bearing 
red, pink, flesh-coloured, and white flowers. ‘These are very 
beautiful when in bloom, the flowers being carried in such 
numbers that the branchlets droop under their weight, while, 
when the earlier blossoms have shed their petals, the shrubs 
stand in lakes of soft colour. At Tregothnan the stable wall, 
eighty yards in length and twenty-five feet in height, is com- 
pletely covered with Camellias.) The queen of the family is 
C. reticulata, generally grown against a wall, but occasionally 
met with as a bush. This is a superb plant, the large, semi- 
double, soft-rose blossoms, with their central cluster of golden 
anthers, being very lovely. Blooms shown at the Cornwall 
Daffodil and Spring Flower Society’s show at Truro often 
measure over seven inches across. 
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