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THE FLOWEB GrABBEK. 



Daphne. — D. Mezereon is one of our earliest and most 

 welcome spring flowers, acceptable to early wandering 

 bees. The French may well call it Bois-Gen'til, or Pretty 

 Wood. Grow it in rich soil, to make it abundantly 

 twiggy, and consequently flowery. Propagate by sowing 

 the berries. The Mezereon, ordinarily pinky-lilac, has 

 white-blossomed and also deep-crimson varieties. The 

 * Wood or Spurge Laurel, D. Laureola, is a hardy ever- 

 green shrub, with green sweet-scented flowers. D. Fontica 

 is similar in habit, but is tenderer. Several others, as 

 D. odor a, a greenhouse shrub, are multiplied by grafting 

 on D. Laureola. An interesting noyelty is Fortune's 

 Daphne, D. Fortunei, found by that enterprising gentle- 

 man in the north of China. It has deciduous leaves, 

 and little terminal tufts of purple-lilac flowers, which 

 appear before the foliage. Grow it in a mixture of heath- 

 mould and sandy loam, and try if it will not prove hardy 

 in the unsheltered bed. 



Deutzia gracilis, from Japan. — A favourite pot-plant, 

 because it forces well, and is covered with an abundance 

 of pure white flowers in small bunches. People who see 

 it in that state in February scarcely suspect that it may 

 be hardy out of doors. D. scabra, on a somewhat larger 

 scale, is a little like a miniature Syringa, with white 

 powerfully-scented blossoms. There are also D. corymbosa 

 and canescens. Deutzias (which merit encouragement) 

 strike readily from cuttings under a bell-glass ; but if 

 plants which have been forced in spring be turned out 

 of their pots in early summer, and planted with their 

 balls rather deep in the open ground, they will form 

 several well-rooted suckers, which will make strong plants 

 the following season. 



Furze (Double) — TJleoc Furopceus — makes a handsome 

 single bush in the midst a grass-plot, glittering in spring 

 like a complete mass of golden flowers. Requires well- 

 drained sandy soil ; and, being of slow growth, is best 

 purchased of nurserymen, who strike it from tiny cuttings 

 under bell-glasses. Double flowers are not common 

 amongst leguminous plants. Severe frost kills Furze, 



