THE SCENTS OF THE GARDEN 237 



form, and from a distance looking bare and arid, and 

 yet with a scattered growth of lowly, sweet-smeUing 

 bush and herb, so that as you move among them every 

 plant seems full of sweet sap or aromatic gum, and as 

 you tread the perfumed carpet the whole air is scented ; 

 then of dusky groves of tall Cypress and Myrtle, 

 forming mysterious shadowy woodland temples that 

 unceasingly offer up an incense of their own surpassing 

 fragrance, and of cooler hollows in the same lands and 

 in the nearer Orient, where the Oleander grows hke the 

 willow of the north, and where the Sweet Bay throws 

 up great tree-like suckers of surprising strength and 

 vigour. It is only when one has seen it grow like this 

 that one can appreciate the full force of the old Bible 

 simile. Then to find oneself standing (while still on 

 earth) in a grove of giant Myrtles fifteen feet high, is 

 like having a little chink of the door of heaven opened, 

 as if to show a momentary ghmpse of what good 

 things may be beyond ! 



Among the sweet shrubs from the nearer of these 

 southern regions, one of the best for English gardens is 

 Cistus laurifolius. Its wholesome, aromatic sweetness is 

 freely given off, even in winter. In this, as in its near 

 relative, G. ladaniferus, the scent seems to come from 

 the gummy surface, and not from the body of the leaf. 

 Caryopteris Mastacanthus, the Mastic plant, from China, 

 one of the few shrubs that flower in autumn, has 

 strongly-scented woolly leaves, something like turpen- 

 tine, but more refined. Ledum palvstn has a delightful 



