154 
THE GARDEN 
MAGAZINE 
APRIL, 1916 
S. pubescens, pale lilac 
(double white); Gloire de Moulins, Macro- 
stachya (pink) ; Charles X (rosy lilac) ; Volcan, 
Congo, Philemon, Ludwig Spith (dark red- 
purple) ; Justi (blue). Be it understood all 
these are forms of the Common Lilac and it is 
not supposed that this selection in its entirety 
would satisfy every enthusiast. 
OTHER KINDS WORTH KNOWING 
But the Common Lilac and its very numer- 
ous descendants do not exhaust Lilacdom. Far 
from it—very far from it. There are other 
species and there are hybrids of singular beauty 
and charm which deserve wide recognition. 
Some blossom earlier than the Common Lilac 
and its forms, and others later; together they 
extend very considerably the Lilac season. 
Further, it is in the hybridizing of these species 
that advance in this useful and pleasing class 
of plants must be looked for in the future. As 
we shall see later a beginning has been made 
and our gardens enriched thereby. 
THE EARLIEST TO FLOWER 
Hach succeeding year in the Arnold Arbo- 
retum there is a close race between two Chinese 
species (S. affinis and S. oblata) to be the first 
Lilac to blossom and usually the first-named 
wins. This has white flowers and is very 
abundantly cultivated in the gardens of 
Peking, and from there was introduced to the 
Arnold Arboretum by Mr. S. T. Williams in 
April, 1904. It is a tall bush of loose, irregular 
habit and has thin branches and sweetly fra- 
grant flowers. The wild prototype of this 
Lilac was recently discovered in northern 
China and named var. Giraldii, after Pére G. 
Girald, an Italian priest of the Roman Catholic 
Church, and reached us through V. Lemoine 
et Fils in 1906. This has mauve colored flowers 
which open about the same time as the type. 
The other species (S. oblata) is a sturdy and 
broad shrub of good habit and has handsome 
leaves, thick and leathery in texture, which in 
the autumn turn to a deep bronze-red or wine 
color. The flowers are large, pale lilac and very 
fragrant but unfortunately they are often in- 
jured by late frosts. It was introduced to 
Hngland by Robert Fortune from Shanghai 
about 1854. In Peking gardens it is much cul- 
Syringa pekinensis, one of the Tree Lilacs, grows about 
thirty feet high 
S. affinis, var. Giraldii, early 
_ assumes the throne. 
A FEW DIFFERENT LILAC TYPES 
tivated and Dr. E. Bretschneider sent seeds 
from Peking to the Botanical Garden, Petro- 
grad, where plants from this source flowered 
in 1888. ‘ 
The next Lilae to open is S. pubescens, also 
native of northern China, and was introduced 
in 1882, by Dr. EH. Bretschneider who sent seeds 
to the Arnold Arboretum, where it flowered for 
the first time in 1886. This is a free-growing 
and free-flowering shrub with erect and rather 
slender stems, small hairy leaves and large 
clusters of pale lilac, fragrant, long-tubed and 
rather ema flowers with dark violet anthers 
and is among the most beautiful of all Lilacs. 
These three Chinese species are the heralds of 
Lilacdom. In rapid succession follow the Com- 
mon Lilac with its numerous progeny and sev- 
eral other species. 
SOME LATE KINDS 
After the Common Lilac has finished flower- 
ing, or nearly so, the Persian Lilae (8. per- 
sica), with its huge clusters of small, fragrant 
flowers which weigh down the slender branches, 
This lovely Lilac was 
cultivated in Hngland as early as the middle 
of the seventeenth century but it is now all too 
seldom seen in gardens. In cultivation it is a 
broad and shapely bush of medium height with 
small leaves and is extraordinarily floriferous. 
The type has pale rosy-purple flowers, and so 
too has the form laciniata with deeply incised 
leaves, but there is also a white flowered va- 
riety (alba). 
Closely allied to the Persian Lilac is S. pin- 
natifolia, a newcomer which I had the pleasure 
of discovering on the borders of China and 
Thibet and of introducing to cultivation in 
1904. This species is remarkable in having 
pinnately divided leaves and in this character 
is distinct from all others. It has small pale 
mauve colored flowers which are borne in broad 
pyramidate clusters but thus far under culti- 
vation it has not flowered freely and unless it 
improves with age it will have to be considered 
more in the light of a curiosity than anything 
else. 
ONE WITH DROOPING FLOWER CLUSTERS 
The most distinct of all Lilacs is the new 
S. reflexa with narrow, cylindrical flower clus- 
ters from nine to twelve inches long which arch 
downward from near the base and thus hang 
somewhat like the inflorescence of the Wisteria. 
The expanding flower-buds are bright red and 
the open flowers are pale rose-color. It will 
thus be seen that this is a plant of singular and 
most distinctive beauty and in the hands of the 
hybridist may be the forerunner of a race 
totally different in aspect when in flower from 
present-day Lilacs. A strong growing shrub 
from eight to twelve feet high, with erect stems 
and oblong lance-shaped leaves, its season of 
flowering is mid-June. It is native of the mar- 
gins of woods and thickets on the mountains of 
western Hupeh, in central China, where I had 
the good fortune to discover it in 1901, and of 
introducing it, together with another new spe- 
cies (S. Julianae) in 1902. The latter is a 
broad shrub scarcely exceeding five feet in 
height but is twice that much in diameter, and 
has thin and twigey branches and small, softly 
hairy leaves. Its rather small clusters of flow- 
ers are very freely produced and the flowers are 
The Rouen Lilac, popular hybrid ._S. Josikaea from S. E. Europe 
S. villosa, late flowering 
small and fragrant and have violet-colored 
anthers. It differs from all other Lilacs in 
having the stalks of the inflorescence and of the 
individual flowers and also the outer surface 
of the corolla-tube a deep purple color. The ~ 
inner surface of the corolla 1s white so that as 
the flowers open the inflorescence is purple and 
white and the contrast is most pleasing and is 
heightened by the dark violet anthers. It 
flowers toward the end of June. 
A late flowering species which under cultiva- 
tion has yet to show its qualities in perfection 
is S. tomentella. I saw this plant in flower for 
the first time on July 9, 1908, on the frontiers 
of eastern Thibet at an altitude of nine thou- 
sand feet, and I thought then that I had never 
before seen such a handsome species of Lilac. 
It had foot high, broad panicles of pink to 
rosy-lilae colored flowers and on other bushes 
they were white. The plants were from eight 
to fifteen feet high, much-branched yet compact 
in habit and the wealth of flower clusters made 
it conspicuous from afar. The leaves are 
elliptic-lance-shaped or rather broader, four to 
six inches long and more or less hairy on the 
underside. In 1903, I had collected in the same 
locality seeds of this Lilac and successfully in- 
troduced it to cultivation. Being rather vari- 
iable in certain characters it has received sev- 
eral names (S. Wilsonii, S. Rehderiana, S. 
alborosea}, but it must be known by its oldest 
name of S. tomentella. Under cultivation it 
has flowered several times and I am patiently 
waiting for it to show its real character. 
Of the late-flowering Lilacs the best known 
in this country and perhaps the hardiest of all 
is S. villosa, a native of northern China and 
from near Peking introduced by Bretschneider 
to the Arnold Arboretum in 1882. It is a large 
shrub of excellent habit with erect fairly stout 
branches and oblong-lance-shaped, rather pale 
green leaves. The flowers are rose-colored, 
pink or nearly white, but they have an unpleas- 
ant odor. It is, however, a first-rate garden 
shrub, exceedingly floriferous and very valuable 
for its hardiness and for its late flowers. Very 
similar in habit to the above but with bluish 
purple flowers is the Hungarian lilac (NS. 
Josikaea) and though much inferior as a gar- 
den shrub to its Chinese relative it has proved 
The Rouen Lilac, often erroneously called Chinese, flow- 
ering just after the Common Lilac, is very floriferous 
