110 



THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



the Metropolitan Horticultural Shows. For their varie- 

 ties, the reader is referred to the nurserymen, especially 

 as new ones are constantly coming out. Even an imper- 

 fect list of those now grown would fill several of these 

 pages. 



Berberry. — The Common Berberis vulgaris is useful 

 to stop a gap in a shrubbery, on account of its curious 

 flowers, with their irritable stamens (which will move 

 if you tickle them with a pin or a bristle), followed 

 by bunches of scarlet fruit. It looks well as a standard 

 with weeping branches. Our gardens have of late made 

 a valuable acquisition in the Evergreen Holly-leaved 

 Berberry, B. (or Malionia) aguifolium and B. pinnata, 

 both easily raised from suckers and seeds, and natives of 

 Oregon and California. 



Bignonia capreolata — Tendrilled Trumpet-flower — is 

 the only one of its genus which can be left all the year 

 round in the open ground. At the foot of a south wall, 

 with a covering of litter at foot in winter, and plenty of 

 room to spread about, it will be covered from midsummer 

 to autumn with a profusion of tubular tawny-red flowers. 

 Strikes easily from cuttings. 



Birthwort — Aristolocliia. — A genus of climbers, with 

 flowers in general not remarkable for beauty. A. SipTio 

 has enormous heart-shaped leaves, which adapt it for 

 covering walls and trellis- work with a thick mantle of 

 green during summer. This species, as well as iomen- 

 tosa and ArJcansa, are hardy in England. Propagate 

 most surely by layers half-divided behind an eye. A. 

 labiosa has a very large whitish flower blotched with blue- 

 black, whose odour is so offensive as almost to prohibit 

 its cultivation. The genus is medicinal, or rather 

 poisonous. Both its English and its botanical names 

 have reference to its effects on the human system, which 

 have sometimes been applied to evil purposes. Hence, 

 some gardeners are unwilling to avail themselves of the 

 aid which its striking foliage affords. 



Bladder Senna — Colutea arloreseens. — Fitter for the 

 shrubbery than the garden proper, and the delight of 



