JUNE, 1908 
Bumald’s spirea, parent of the ubiquitous Anthony 
Waterer. Magenta flowers can be softened and puri- 
fied only by having a luxuriant background like this 
to furnish greenery and shadows 
for hybridizers to cross this purple-pink 
Chinese spirea with the European and 
American species that have white flowers in 
flat clusters, and this is what seems to have 
been done in the case of S. Margarite, the 
only rival of the Waterer spirea that is 
warmly commended just now. How good 
its “bright pink” may be I cannot say, 
but the fact that it grows twice as high 
as the Waterer spirea (four or five feet) 
gives it an excuse for existence. In height, 
evidently, it follows the Chinese form of the 
purple-tipped spirea, while its larger flowers 
are supposed to be derived from S. superba, 
which, though pink, is believed to be a hybrid 
between two white-flowered species (the 
Japanese albiflora and the American corym- 
bosa). The botanical evidence for the 
hybridity of Margarite is as follows: It 
has the cylindrical (not angled) branches 
of Japonica, the upright seed-pods of albi- 
flora and the larger individual flower of 
superba. 
The last member of this group that is at 
all suitable for Northern borders is the 
Japanese albiflora which grows only a foot 
and a half high. I know only one American 
nurseryman who offers it. 
TWO FOR SOUTHERN SHRUBBERIES 
The most beautiful flat-clustered white- 
flowered spirea for the South, as nearly as 
Ican make out, is the gray-leaved Himalayan 
spirea (S. canescens). The South is for- 
tunate in being able to grow the plants of 
the Himalayas, and I predict that when the 
Gardening Renaissance comes to the South 
it will look as eagerly to the Himalayas for 
floral treasures as the North has looked to 
Japan and now looks to the back parts of 
China. This gray-leaved spirea is grown 
as far north as Morrisville, Pa., where it 
may attain three to six feet, but in a warmer 
climate it has been known to attain a height 
ot twelve feet —a superb size for a bush 
that combines summer bloom with the 
graceful habit of the spring-blooming section. 
You will find this plant under many names, 
e. g., argentea, cuneata, cuneifolia, flagellata, 
flagelliformis, rotundifolia and vaccinifolia. 
The loveliest flat-clustered, pink-flowered 
spirea for the South is S. pulchella, a hybrid 
THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 
that is supposed to owe its beauty to two 
more Himalayan species, since it combines 
the broad clusters of expansa with the 
brighter color of bella. 
FOUR FLAT CLUSTERS FOR ROCKERIES 
There are mighty few people in America 
who have good rockeries, and therefore I 
must dismiss these briefly. The best pink 
flowered kind seems to be S. bullata. Three 
native white-flowered species are offered: 
S. decumbens grows a half foot high; S. 
corymbosa two or three feet high and has 
thick, oval leaves; S. Virginiana grows 
three or four feet high and has thin oblong 
leaves. 
Ii— THOSE WITH CONICAL CLUSTERS 
All these have dense, narrow cones like 
the one pictured on page 284. It must 
be confessed that this is the stiffest and least 
beautiful type of spirea, and also that the 
spikes are liable to a sort of blasting or 
damping off. They are most untidy when 
passing out of bloom. Moreover, most 
of them spread by suckers, so that I consider 
them quite unfit for hardy borders. On 
the other hand they make lovely distant 
effects (as the picture on page 284 shows) 
and are excellent for wild gardening, especi- 
ally in meadows and damp places. Most 
of them can be had in large quantities at 
low rates, e. g., $10-$25 per 100. Incon- 
genial situations they will make spikes five 
to eight inches long. 
THREE WHITE-FLOWERED MEADOWSWEETS 
Before I bring on the villain of this group, 
let me introduce the oldest favorite — the 
meadowsweet or queen of the meadow. 
This is considered by Dr. Britton as a 
single species of world-wide distribution. 
To protect gardeners’ interests, however, 
I shall follow Mr. Rehder and split it into 
three species: the European, the Eastern, 
and the Western. 
The European meadowsweet (S. salici- 
jolia) has rather oblong clusters and yellow- 
ish brown branches, while the American 
meadowsweets have pyramidal clusters and 
reddish brown branches. The European 
meadowsweet has white or pinkish flowers 
and the Japanese variety commands a higher 
price because it has the most pink in it. 
The Eastern meadowsweet (S. /atifolia) 
is taller and more upright than the form 
that is commonly found west of the Alle- 
ghanies, and the chief botanical difference 
is that the clusters are minutely woolly 
(tomentulose). It attains a height of six feet. 
The Western meadowsweet (S. alba) is 
only two to five feet high, is more branched, 
and the clusters are quite glabrous. 
These white-flowered meadowsweets seem 
to bloom before the pink ones, beginning 
about the end of June and continuing 
through July, while the next three are more 
likely to begin in July and run over a little 
into August. 
FOUR PINKISH-PURPLE MEADOWSWEETS 
The most violently colored spirea of the 
conical-clustered group is Douglas’s spirea 
285 
(S. Douglasi) which, I grieve to say, is used 
by some people as a hedge, thereby producing 
a faithful billboard effect. A colored plate 
in The Garden makes it a tender pink, 
something like ‘chaste marble kissed by 
the rosy flush of dawn.” I hope there is 
such a variety, but I suspect that this ideal 
has not yet been realized. To achieve it 
one would naturally this strong- 
colored Douglas spirea with the common 
white meadowsweet of Europe, and that 
seems to be exactly what has been done to 
produce the favorite pink hybrid meadow 
cross 
sweet of the day, viz. S. Billardii. Other 
attempts to realize this same ideal are 
Lenneana, Bethlehemensis, rubra, trium- 
phans, eximia, Constantia, and Californica, 
all presumably of the same parentage. I 
wish that some country gentleman who has 
a large place would make a collection of 
these hybrids and tell us their relative 
merits. Now that we have the splendid 
color chart of the French Chrysanthemum 
Society, we ought to have a color key to 
every group that contains these lavender- 
purple-crimson shades so that the sheep 
can be separated from the goats and honestly 
recorded. 
Another purplish pink from the Pacific 
Coast is S. Menziesii. Its only horticultural 
distinction is that it grows four feet high 
while Douglasi attains eight feet and 
Billardii six. The chief botanical difference 
is that Menzies’s meadowsweet has the under 
side of the leaves pale green while that of 
Douglas’s meadowsweet is woolly white. 
Thus the amount of Douglas blood in the 
hybrids above-mentioned may be roughly 
gaged by the amount of white wool present, 
since the white-flowered meadowsweets are 
glabrous. 
The fourth and last of these colored 
meadowsweets is the hardhack or steeple- 
bush (S. tomentosa), which is the latest 
bloomer (beginning toward the end of July 
and lasting through August), and perhaps 
has the deepest color, since it is frequently 
how a single summer spirea bush will 
Showing 
brighten a large collection of shrubs (S. Japonica, 
var. abd) 
