636 ARBORETUM ET FRUTICETUM BRITANNICUM. 
2 |. S, vutea‘ris Z. The common Lilac. 
Identification. Lin. Sp., 11. ; Don’s Mill., 4. p. 51. 
Synonymes. Lilac vulgaris Gerin ; Pipe Privet, or Pipe Tree; Lilas commun, Fr.; gemeiner 
Flieder, Ger.; Lilla, or Lilac turco, Jtal. 
Engravings. Lam. lll., t.7.; Schmidt Baum., t.77.; N. Du. Ham., t. 61. 
Spec. Char., $c. Leaves ovate-cordate, acuminated. (Don’s Mill.) A de- 
ciduous shrub, Persia and Hungary, on chalky precipices in the @verna 
valley, and Mount Domoglet, as well as on the whole group of rocks along the 
Danube. Height 8 ft. to 10 ft. Introduced in 1597. Flowers purple 
or white; May. Fruit brown ; ripe in September. 
Varicties. 
& S.. 1] cerilea Clus. Hist. i. p.56, Krause t.26., and our fig. 1238. 
— Flowers blue. There is a subvariety with the leaves imperfectly 
variegated. MY 
% 8. v. 2 violdcea Curt. Bot. Mag. t.183., and our 
Jig. 1237. — Flowers purple. The Scotch Lilac, so 
called, because it was first recorded in Sutherland’s 
Catalogue of the Edinburgh Botanie Garden, 
& S.v. 3 alba. — Flowers white. This variety flowers #7 
earliest. 
. v0. 4 dlba major Lodd. Cat. ed. 1836. — Flowers 
a 8S 
larger than those of the previous variety. 
x S. v, 5 alba plena, S.pléna Lod. Cat.—Flowers double. 
% § v, 6 rubra Lodd. Cat. — Flowers red 
2 S.v. 7 rubra major Lodd. Cat. ed. 1836, the Lilas 
de Marly of the French gardeners, has flowers 
larger than the parent variety. 1237. S. v. violacea. 
Other Varieties. A number of plants have been raised from seed by 
Mr. Williams of Pitmaston, of which there are six sorts, tolerably distinct, 
in the Horticultural Society’s Garden. The French nurserymen are also 
in possession of some new seedlings ; but none of all that we have ob- 
served are so well deserving of culture as the common blue, the violet, the 
red, and the white. 
The common lilac grows to the height of 20 ft. and upwards in good free 
soil; and, though it naturally sends up abundance of suckers in every 
direction, so as to form a dense mass of stems, yet, when these are cleared 
away as they appear, and only one stem left, it ° 
may be trained to form a very handsome small tree, 
beautiful when in leaf, and preeminently so when 
in flower. The rate of growth is considerable, 
varying, according to the soil and situation, from 
18 in. to 8 ft. in a year, for the first three or four 
years, The duration is not great; probably between 
twenty and thirty years in rich soils, and between 
forty and fifty in such as are dry and comparatively 
poor. Plants which are never allowed to produce 
suckers of any size, and in which the bunches of 
flowers have been thinned out, ripen seeds; and 
these, according to Miller, produced plants which 
are true to their varieties. In sone parts of Britain, 
and various parts of Germany, it is mixed with 
other shrubs, or planted alone, to form garden 
hedges; and, as a proof of its hardiness, we may 
mention that there are hedges of it by the road- NV “ 
sides, in the neighbourhood of Ulm and Augsburg, jesse tevieeien. 
in the elevated, and consequently cold, region of 
Bavaria. Mixed with sweet briars, sloe thorns, scarlet thorns, Guelder rose 
