TEEES AND SHEUBS. 



73 



longer than the leaves, cylindrical and dense. 

 Flo\7ers set on rather long foot-stalks. Sepals and 

 petals pure white, profusely spotted with bluish- 

 lilac. Lip fiddle-shaped, rich deep rosy-violet, and 

 marked with five raised lines on the crest. Winter 

 months. Philippine Islands. 



TREES AND SHEUBS. 



By George Nicholsok. 



Arbutus. — There are ahout ten species of Ariu- 

 ius, only two or three of which can he placed in a list 

 of hardy shrubs, and even the Strawberry-tree of Kil- 

 lamey, &c. {A. Unedo), often gets killed during severe 

 winters even in the South of England. As, how- 

 ■ever, it is a rapid-growing and very ornamental ever- 

 green, either with or without flowers and fruit, it is 

 worth planting in other places than favoured spots 

 along the south coast. There are several varieties, 

 one of the best of aU being A. U. nibra,-with. hand- 

 some reddish flowers. This must be propagated either 

 by layering or grafting on the type. A. Andraehne is 

 a larger species from the Levant, with deciduous 

 reddish bark peeling oH the branches in large flakes. 

 The white flowers are borne in large panicles. In 

 many places this, which is larger in all its parts than 

 A. Unedo, is hardier than that species, with which it 

 hybridises freely, several plants more or less inter- 

 mediate in general character between the two being 

 in cultivation. A. procera is a North American plant 

 nearly allied to A. Andraehne. All the Arhutus, like 

 most of the Erieacece, thrive best in a peaty soil. 



Arctostaphylos.— This is a small genus of hand- 

 some evergreen shrubs, belonging to the same order 

 and requiring the same treatment as the last-named. 

 In the British flora it is represented by two species, 

 one of which, the Bearherry {A. TTm-ursi), a pretty 

 trailer, is worth a place in the front of any peat 

 border. A. iomentosa and A. pmgens are two erect 

 much-branched North American shrubs, with pure 

 white flowers. Neither of them is so hardy as the 

 Bearberrj', although they have grown and flowered 

 freely for many years in places where some so-caUed 

 hardy shrubs have suffered from the severity of un- 

 favourable winters. 



Arundo.— The only member of this genus of 

 Grasses which is woody, and at the same time fairly 

 hardy, is the South European A. Donax, a hand- 

 some plant for the margin of ornamental water. It 

 grows in dense tufts, and has long narrow gracefully- 

 curling leaves, and tall stems, a dozen feet or so in 

 -height. These latter are used for making fishing- 



rods, and also musical instruments, &o. The varie- 

 gated form is a desirable foliage plant, but is not so 

 hardy as the common green-leaved one. 



Atriplex. — ^Most of the members of this genus, 

 which contains some fifty or sixty species of Clieinopo- 

 diacea, are worthless as garden plants. A. Salimus, 

 however, is an interesting shrub, with stalked ovate- 

 oblong entire leaves, clothed, as well as the twigs, 

 with a grey scaly indumentum. It is a native of the 

 sea-coasts oi the Mediterranean region, and along the 

 southern coast of England, &c., it makes one of the 

 best of sea-side shrubs, and grows freely in spots 

 where most shrubby vegetation would not thrive 

 at all. 



Aucuba. — Since the introduction of the male 

 plant of A. japoniea by Fortune many years ago, a 

 large number of seedling forms of this extremely 

 popular and useful shrub have sprung into existence. 

 So numerous are the named varieties that it is hardly 

 worth whQe mentioning them in detail. There are 

 green and variegated forms of both sexes, and all 

 that is necessary to secure a fine crop of bright red 

 oblong berries is to plant one or more male plants 

 anywhere near the female ones. Of course, conveying 

 the pollen from the male plant to the female by means 

 of a camel's-hair brush renders fertilisation, perhaps, 

 more certain than if left to the agency of insects 

 or wind ; but a few male plants dotted here and there 

 wiU in practice be found to secure the due fertilisation 

 of females within a considerable radius, without arti- 

 ficial aid of any kind. A. Mimalaica differs princi- 

 pally from its Japanese relative in the ample, dark 

 green, long-stalked leaves, and spherical, not oblong, 

 berries. 



Azalea.— In the spring months no hardy shrubs 

 afford a more brilliant display of varied colour than 

 the so-caUed Ghent Azaleas, which are in reality 

 garden hybrids between the Oriental A. pontioa and 

 the North American A. calendulaeea, A. nudiflora, 

 A. viseosa, &c. These hybridise and intercross with 

 each other freely, and now some of the varieties of 

 more recent strains are much superior to the wild 

 types in colour, beautiful as these are. Another gi-eat 

 advantage, too, which they possess over the older 

 seedlings of the nudiflora type is the presence of weU- 

 developed leaves, produced contemporaneously with 

 the flowers, which are much showier in their setting 

 of green than on bare leafless twigs. Many double- 

 flowered forms, too, of the set about which we have 

 just spoken have been raised of late, and these last, 

 as a rule, some days longer in full beauty than the 

 best of the single ones. All the Azaleas here men- 

 tioned must have a peaty soil, and they by no means 



