In My Vicarage Garden 



attention to it. For it is absolutely unique in the 

 plant world, with the exception of its near relation 

 the North American R. cotinoides, a plant which I 

 strongly recommend for the beauty of its foliage 

 in spring and autumn, but I have not seen the 

 flower. The peculiarity of the structure is that 

 the flower stalks which form the panicle are 

 perfectly smooth when first formed, and remain 

 smooth if they bear flowers ; but if, as is usually 

 the case, they bear no flowers, the stems are 

 covered with rigid hairs which add to and even 

 form the wigginess of the shrub ; and though 

 botanists have tried to explain the connection 

 between these two peculiar characters of the tree, 

 they remain unexplained and are absolutely 

 unique. There are, we know, many plants which 

 by cultivation have had their flowers converted 

 into what we should call more useful parts ; and 

 there are some which man uses before the flowers 

 are formed, such as the caper, the clove, the 

 cauliflower, the pineapple, and others, but all 

 these have been purposely changed by man ; in 

 the wig or smoke tree the work is all nature's. 



Coming to bulbs, and speaking of them very 

 shortly, it has certainly been a good year for lilies. 

 My own garden is not very favourable to lilies, but I 

 had some very good ones this year, especially some 

 of the North American lilies, also the martagons,and 

 the fine South European L. pomponium ; and the 

 Madonna lily, which is at once the most beautiful 

 and the most capricious of all, has this year. 



