172 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Fuchsia Biccartoni is a profuse autumn flowerer, and although 

 anywhere north of London it dies down to the ground, however mild the 

 winter, yet the clear dark-brown wood looks very nice until the time 

 comes for it to be cut away for the new growth. I have never known 

 the roots to be killed, however severe the season. 



Among the Bamboos, Arundinaria japonica syn. Bambusa Metalce is 

 the only one which is at once cheap, hardy, and indifferent as to soil and 

 situation, provided it be not too much exposed to wind. Though it enjoys 

 the vicinity of water, it does not insist on it, and its foliage is at the best 

 in autumn and winter ; in fact the only time when it looks shabby is after 

 a course of easterly wdnds in spring. It sends up suckers very freely, and 

 in some shrubberies it has a tendency to become a nuisance on this account, 

 like the Polygonum. One fault it has in common with all Bamboos, that 

 occasionally (though fortunately not often) it produces flowers something 

 like dirty-looking Oats, and w T hen it flowers it dies. I do not remember 

 observing this phenomenon before last year, when in my father's garden 

 at Aldenham, Herts, we lost a large mass of Metake about 15 feet high 

 by 20 feet round, and about fifteen years old, from this cause. It flowered 

 all over, not merely on the strong canes but on every tiny shoot, and 

 this year every particle is stone-dead, nor has it, as I hoped it might, 

 shot up again from the roots. 



This summer also I have, to my grief, detected Phyllostachys Castillonis 

 and another rare Bamboo in flower, so I fear that I shall lose them too, 

 although I have tried the experiment of at once cutting them to the 

 ground in hopes that I may be in time before the exhaustion caused by 

 flowering has reached a fatal point. 



The Sea Buckthorn {Hippophae rhamnoides) looks very well in 

 autumn if planted in a mass, but being dioecious it is necessary to have 

 male plants intermingled in the proportion of about one to six ; when 

 this is done the females berry profusely and the bright orange fruit 

 contrasts admirably with the silver-grey foliage, having also the ad- 

 vantage, from the gardener's point of view, of being unpalatable to 

 birds. It is often supposed that this plant requires sea air, but though 

 the seaside is its home it will do perfectly well inland, and on soils so 

 diverse as chalk and London clay. 



Perhaps one of the most effective masses of autumn colouring can be 

 produced by collecting a lot of suckers or young plants of the common 

 Stag-horned Sumach (Bhus typhina) and treating it precisely as I have 

 suggested earlier in this paper in the case of the common Snowberry. The 

 ordinary sticky, leggy appearance of the plant is avoided, and by summer 

 time you have a dense level sheet of semi-tropical-looking foliage, 2 feet 

 0 inches to 3 feet high, which attracts universal attention in September 

 by the brilliance of its red and orange tints. 



Bhus glabra laciniata colours equally w T ell and has a more elegant 

 form, but is far less vigorous, and more expensive. 



Among late-flowering trees and shrubs I can recommend Bobinia neo- 

 viexicana (pale violet) ; Olearia Haastii (white) ; Spartium junceum (rich 

 yellow), a very suitable flower for table decorations; Desmodium penduli- 

 florum syn. Lcspedcza Sicboldi (dark violet) ; Hibiscus of sorts, particularly 

 the single white (totus albus) ; Bubus fruticosus fl. pi. roseo, a free 



