EVERGREEN HUCKLEBERRY. t05 



California Sweet Shrub i Calycanthus occidental^). — This 



is an upright shrub, four to twelve feet high, brownish below, 

 pale cherry red above; leaves large, or about live to six 

 inches long and two wide, oblong lance-shaped and sharply 

 pointed, often rounded or slightly heart-form at base, mar- 

 gin entire, rough, lightish green alike above and below, on 

 very short leaf stalks; blooms from April to November; 

 ripens its fruit well ; flowers purplish, the numerous thick, 

 fleshy, strap-like petals or flower leaves an inch or more long; 

 a soft bloomy hue heightens the delicacy of the surface. 

 This rather madder-brown hue often becomes tawny or a 

 little bleached at the tips; the odor a very delicate fruity 

 fragrance. These successive flowers are at length followed 

 by an oblong thimble or beer-glass-shaped seed vessel, rough 

 scarred and veined on the outside, smooth and satiny within, 

 and at maturity, unlike the Eastern Atlantic, open at 

 the top. These little erect cups, mounted on stems a few 

 inches long, contain numerous loose and rattling raisin-seed- 

 like bodies. ' These tiny fig-formed seeds, one fourth of an 

 inch long or more, have a most elegant silky-velvety coating, 

 as if finely bedewed. This very companionable shrub is 

 usually found herding together, by multiplying from creep- 

 ing roots. They delight in sweet well percolated declivities 

 of rich and often rocky margins of gulches, or lesser ravines, 

 on short primeval rivulets of hills, or, for the most part, 

 contiguous to living springs. Valued for rural culture. 



Golden Venegasia ( Venegasia carj^esioides). — A stout, very 

 verdant perennial or half-herbaceous bushy shrub, very 

 showy indeed, with abundant golden, or rather brilliant 

 lemon-yellow flowers, blooming nearly all the year round, 

 very bright and cheerful; their gayety in the half-gloomy 

 canon is rendered still more brilliant against their owji dark 

 green leafy background; three to six feet high, much 

 branched, and spreading into a rather symmetrical clump; 

 allied to the chrysanthemums or Christmas daisies. They 

 adorn the distance, but are scarcely at all suited to the bou- 

 quet. Its natural habitat also is suggestive, for it flourishes 

 the very finest display in sombre glens and half-shady woods, 

 or perched on the brink of gloomy canons, or on the sides of 

 the precipice, where the sun rarely shines ; here it lightens up 

 the lone surroundings with a radiant glow T of glory wonder- 

 fully enchanting. For similar purposes it is well worthy 

 the attention of florists. 



The Queenly Cassiope Heathling {Cassiope Mertensi- 



<ma.)— This tiny, delicate, moss-like winter-green shrublet, of 



a few inches only, with scale-like leaves overlapping in four 



rows and so altogether on the square, and the flowers pure 



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