54 TREES AND SHRUBS 



Perhaps we ought not to include Magnolias amongst 

 hibernal flowers, though the trees are often white 

 with blossom before the Larch is green ; but the 

 list of shrubs which bloom, or are bright with 

 coloured fruit during those four months, would sur- 

 prise most people who think of winter only as the 

 dead season. The boughs of Sea Buckthorn are 

 loaded with orange berries. Clusters of scarlet peep 

 out of the fresh green of the Skimmia bushes and, 

 so long as the birds do not find them out, Pernettya 

 carries a crop of purple and crimson and pink fruit 

 more showy than the modest white flowers of summer. 

 When November days are growing dark, Coronilla, 

 in sheltered spots, puts forth its pale clustering yellow 

 flowers. Winter Jasmine, if the flowering branches 

 are not ruthlessly pruned away in autumn, covers 

 its long green shoots with golden stars. The ever- 

 green Clematis (C calycina) is never happier than 

 when clinging to some terrace balustrade where it 

 may have a little kindly shelter, which it repays by 

 wreathing the stone-work with garlands of finely-cut 

 bronzed foliage, hung with creamy freckled bells. 

 More than one kind of hardy Heath, if grown in 

 spreading masses, will deck the garden with sheets 

 of colour the whole winter through. 



The Chinese Honeysuckle (Z. Standishii) arrays 

 itself in its fragile white flowers as early as January. 

 Witch Hazels hang their bare branches with twisted 

 petals of gold or amber or, sometimes (as in Hama- 

 melis zuccariniand), borrow the pale-green tint of the 

 under wing of a brimstone butterfly. Soon after 



