50 SYLVA FLORIFERA. 



middle rank in the plantation. And we have 

 already noticed how charmingly it contrasts 

 with the laburnum and the Guelder rose; the 

 purple variety being placed with the snow 

 ball, and the white lilac advancing its pale 

 leaves before the cypress, the bay tree, or 

 other dark evergreens ; whilst the blue Per- 

 sian lilac may spread its more humble, but 

 not less graceful branches, in the foreground 

 of its white relative. The Persian lilac seldom 

 exceeds five or six feet in height in the most 

 favourable situations ; therefore it should only 

 be placed in front of the shrubbery clumps or 

 plantations. It often spreads to a consider- 

 able extent, and covers its whole mass with 

 its loose branches of delicate flowers, which 

 are of a more agreeable, though less powerful 

 odour, than those of the common lilac. We 

 have seen large bushes of the common privet- 

 leaved lilac growing on lawns, bending their 

 slender branches to the turf every way, and 

 forming a mount of blossoms, arising from the 

 green sward, that could leave the most volup- 

 tuous florist nothing to wish. Of the Persian 

 lilacs, the variety with cut or pinnatified 

 leaves was the first introduced, which Parkin- 

 son tells us, in 1640, was then growing in the 

 garden of Master Tradescant, at South Lam- 

 beth. It is noticed also by Parkinson, in his 



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