973 



PB ACTIO AL GUIDE TO GABDEN PLANTS ephedra 



SCIRPUS lacustris (Bulrush).— 

 An ornamental native plant with thick 

 round and usually leafless stems 1-8 ft. 

 high, springing from creeping rootstocks, 

 and bearing at the summit cymes of 

 flowers in July and August. The blooms 

 are arranged in sessile cone-like spikelets, 

 which look very pretty when in fruit, 

 being reddish-brown in colour. 



Culture mid Propagation, — This plant 

 should be planted in water about 1 ft. 



deep, and large masses of it look effective 

 in autumn. Increased by division in 

 autumn or spring. 



S. Tabernsmontani zebrinus, better 

 known as Juncua zebrinus, has long round 

 leaves barred and banded , with yellow 

 and green alternately, and is a handsome 

 and attractive plant grown in masses by 

 the edge of water, the stems reminding 

 one very much of porcupine quills. 



Culture (tc. as above. 



Class II. GYMNOSPEBMS (see p. 122). 



CXXIX. GNETACE^ 



A small but interesting order containing shrubs or trees with jointed branch- 

 lets and simple opposite sometimes scaly leaves. Flowers one-sexed, the 

 male and female ones often on different plants (dioecious) and arising, either 

 singly or in dense conical or interrupted spikes, from the axils of the opposite 

 and decussate bracts. There are only three genera and about forty species 

 belonging to this order, mostly natives of the tropics. 



EPHEDRA.— A genus of erect or 

 trailing evergreen shrubs with articulated 

 joints and rudimentary or scale - like 

 leaves resembhng those of the Horsetail. 

 Flowers usually dioecious. 



E. distachya. — A curious evergreen 

 shrub or bush 3-4 ft. high, native of South 

 Europe, with green cylindrical branches, 

 furnished at each jointed node with two 

 small linear leaves. The whitish flowers 

 are borne in twin catkins or spikes in 

 July and August, and are succeeded by 

 red or scarlet berries on the female plants. 

 The variety monostachya (or JE. vulgaris) 



is a smaller and hardier shrub 1-2 ft. high, 

 which produces its flowers in soUtary in- 

 stead of twin catkins. 



Culture and Propagation, — These 

 curious plants, although rather attractive 

 in appearance, and especially when bear- 

 ing their red berries in autumn, are not 

 very much grown except in botanical col- 

 lections. I'hey flourish in ordinary soil 

 in warm and sheltered spots, and may be 

 used in nooks in the rock garden. They 

 are increased by layering the branches in 

 summer and autumn. 



CXXX. CONIFERiE— Pine Tree Order 



An important order, consisting for the most part of evergreen trees or shrubs, 

 having the leaves alternate, opposite, or clustered in a membranous sheath, 

 often narrow, linear, and needle-like, or reduced to dense imbricating scales, 

 rarely with a flattened limb. Male and female flowers without a perianth, 

 and separate, either on the same (monoecious) or on different (dioecious) trees. 

 Male flowers in catkins ; stamens numerous. Female flowers in cones or 

 soHtary, each flower consisting of two scales, the upper one having the naked 

 ovules on the inner surface, the lower one being merely a protecting bract. 

 Seeds often winged, not enclosed in an ovary, as is the case with all the other 

 plants hitherto described in this work. They simply lie naked on the surface 

 of the scale ; hence the plants belonging to this group have been called naked- 



