VII.] LIST OF SHRUBS. !2.";3 



it is an additional reconiraendation. Graft on the common acacia, 

 in jnst the same manner that you graft apples or pears (see par. 210. 

 for tongLie-graiting), and, if you make any difference at all, graft 

 nearer to the ground than is there recommended ; and draw the 

 earth up with a hoe about the clay that you wrap round the 

 grafted plant, and this will keep up a moistness that renders the 

 operation more surely successful. The plants will flower the first 

 year, but, unless they are in a very sheltered situation, they should 

 have stakes driven in alongside of them, and should be tied to 

 these, for they are exceedingly brittle, and would be bloM^n to 

 pieces by one high wind, without this precaution. The flowers 

 come on the same year's wood, therefore keep your plants short- 

 ened every year, if you wish them to flower low down ; but, if 

 you have them on lawns, or buried at all in the shrubbery, let 

 them have their way, only now-and-then cutting out dead wood 

 or broken limbs. It is perfectly hardy, and any soil almost suits 

 it, though, like most other things, it flourishes most in the finest 

 soil. — The Smooth-tree Acacia. — Lat. Mimosa Julihrissin, is 

 a green-house shrub. It is not ranked by the botanists with the 

 preceding plant, but I put them together as acacias, meaning to 

 have done with that genus of plants when I have finished this 

 paragraph. This plant is a native of the Levant, where it be- 

 comes a tree of thirty feet high, blows a rose-coloured flower in 

 August. It is propagated either by sowing the seeds, or by laying ; 

 and, in cultivation, it requires a fresh and rather light mould ; 

 and, if put in the open ground, should be very carefully protected 

 from frosts and cold winds. — Sponge-tree Acacia. — Lat. Mi- 

 mosa farnesiana, is also a green-house plant, but is rather less 

 hardy than the preceding. It comes from Saint Domingo, where it 

 grows to about fifteen feet high. Its wood is white and hard, and 

 its branches thorny ; its leaves are small, and shut up at the 

 decline of the sun, as do those of several of the acacias, and in 

 August it blows a small head of yellow and sweet-scented flowers. 

 Propagated in the same mauijer as the last. — Pseudo- Acacia, 

 see Locust. 



322. AIjI^^IO^ D ,comnwndiva7]f. Lat. Atni/gdalns nana. A hardy 

 tree, originally from Russia, growing about three feet high, and 

 blowing a pink flower in March and April. Propagated by sow- 

 ing in a nursery, or where they are to stay ; but the best sorts 

 are obtained by grafting either on the common almond, or on 



