ON TREES AND SHRUBS 



409 



bright colour of its flowers it deserves a good place in the 

 garden. It is usually treated as a wall-shrub, for which position 

 it is well adapted, and when grown thus will often reach to 

 a height of 8ft, and then when carrying its hundreds of tiny 

 flowers its beauty is very striking. R. americanum {R. floridum, 

 R. pennsylvanicum) is worthy of mention. Of yellow-flowered 

 kinds, R. aureum (Buffalo Currant) is a good example ; it forms 

 a bush 6ft. high, and produces its flowers in April and May. 

 The flowers of R. a. pracox are generally borne a fortnight 

 in advance of those of the last-named species, while those of 

 R. a. serotinum are produced late in the season, on which 

 account it should be included. R. a. aurantiacum minus is of 

 close, compact habit, very free-flowering, and rich yellow in 

 colour. A group of this kind, with a few plants of R. san- 

 guineum atrosanguineum has a telling effect when in flower. R. 

 alpinum pumilum aureum is conspicuous for its golden-yellow 

 foliage, which it retains for the greater part of the growing 

 season. Being a neat, low-growing shrub, it is worthy of a place 

 in the rock garden. 



Fig. 265. — Robinia HISPIDA. 



Robinia hispida (Rose Acacia), a native of North America, 

 is one of the most delightful of dwarf-flowering trees. It thrives 

 well in nearly all soils, especially so when rather dry. The 

 pendulous, racemes of rose-pink pea-shaped flowers (Fig. 265) 

 appear about June. Worked on standards several feet high, and 

 planted amongst low-growing shrubs, a fine effect is produced by 

 this shrub when in flower. R. h. inermis (R. macrophylld) is an 



