MAY 73 



and Comtesse de Tuder, both pinks of a delightful 

 quality, and a lovely white called Bijou de Chusan. 

 The Tree Pseonies are also beautiful in leaf; the indi- 

 vidual leaves are large and important, and so carried 

 that they are well displayed. Their colour is peculiar, 

 being bluish, but pervaded with a suspicion of pink 

 or pinkish-bronze, sometimes of a metallic quahty that 

 faintly recalls some of the variously-coloured alloys of 

 metal that the Japanese bronze-workers make and use 

 with such consummate skill. 



It is a matter of regret that varieties of the better 

 kinds of Moutans are not generally grown on their own 

 roots, and still more so that the stock in common use 

 should not even be the type Tree Pseony, but one of 

 the herbaceous kinds, so that we have plants of a hard- 

 wooded shrub worked on a thing as soft as a Dahlia 

 root. This is probably the reason why they are so diffi- 

 cult to establish, and so slow to grow, especially on light 

 soils, even when their beds have been made deep and 

 liberally enriched with what one judges to be the most 

 gratifying comfort. Every now and then, just before 

 blooming time, a plant goes off all at once, smitten 

 with sudden death. At the time of making my col- 

 lection I was unable to visit the French nurseries where 

 these plants are so admirably grown, and whence most 

 of the best kinds have come. I had to choose them 

 by the catalogue description — always an unsatisfactory 

 way to any one with a keen eye for colour, although 

 in this matter the compilers of foreign catalogues are 



