OF SHRUBS, MOSTLY EVERGREEN 33 



then suddenly comes Azalea Gloria into sight, and all the 

 others are forgotten. Azalea Gloria is really Rhododen- 

 dron dilatatum, and it makes a solid band of colour across 

 the hills below Nantai-San in the strangest way, never 

 descending below or rising above a level so sharply defined 

 that its bounding lines never seem to shift. A hill that 

 just rises to the required height is capped by the Rhodo- 

 dendron ; a greater one is barred by it straight across 

 the slope. 



Rhododendron dilatatum is a tall, loose shrub, with 

 silver-white bark, deciduous, and blooming before the 

 leaves. Only on mature plants are the flowers freely pro- 

 duced. They come before the leaves, and are very large, 

 of the purest and most brilliant cherry-pink, absolutely 

 devoid of the brassy or magenta tones that disfigure so 

 many of the Azaleas. A well-flowered specimen is the 

 most beautiful sight I have ever seen in the way of a 

 flowering shrub — the efifect is of an innumerable crowd of 

 rosy butterflies alighted, each by itself, on a naked silver 

 tree — so delicately balanced are the wide trumpets, each 

 on a distinct pedicel of its own. With great difiiculty 

 and after many failures and delays did I succeed, two 

 years ago, in importing a hundred young plants of the 

 Rhododendron. Of these only about half a dozen sur- 

 vived, though treated with every care. Rhododendron 

 dilatatum is an Alpine shrub, and the rigidity of its 

 limitation proves that its requirements are definite and 

 imperious. It grows in the loose spongy soil of the 

 mountain woodland, and its roots love to wander through 

 the cool, light mass amid the great stones beneath the 

 surface, which preserve the moisture even more faithfully 

 than the faithful copsewood and humus above. And I 

 have little hope that, except by some rare fluke of some 

 individual's luck, or some individual plant's persistence, 

 we shall ever be able to make an easy garden plant of 



