348 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



B. Wallichiana, and is certainly handsomer than the type. B. congestiflora 

 hakeoides has a round leaf with spiny edge and a bright yellow flower, 

 and can be recommended as one of the best-looking of the genus. 

 Of deciduous forms B. vulgaris aur. marg. and B. vulgaris spathulata 

 are varieties of the common barberry, neither of which is worth growing, 

 in my judgment ; and the same remark applies to B. purpurea Egberti, 

 in which the purple leaves are faintly striped or powdered with white, 

 and, as far as I can see, to B. canadensis also. B. Lycium, usually 

 sold under the name of B. elegans, is a robust, free-growing kind, with 

 grey- green foliage. B. virescens is also a strong, upright grower, of 

 which the young canes come a bright red, turning to nut brown as they 

 get older ; its foliage in autumn almost equals in brilliancy the well 

 known B. Thunbergii. It flowers freely. B. concinna, as its name 

 implies, is a neat plant of compact growth ; the fruit is in colour and 

 shape like the edible barberry, but grows singly instead of in racemes, and 

 is rather stouter. B. diaphana is very like B. virescens to look at when 

 in winter dress ; its name indicates the diaphanous appearance of the 

 fruit, but it has not yet fruited with us. B. umbellata is a strong grower 

 and sub-evergreen, the leaves persisting all through an ordinary winter, 

 but turning from a dark green to a rich purple. B. sp., from the 

 Chilian Andes, unnamed, was given me by Mr. Elwes, the well-known 

 writer on trees ; it is evergreen and more like B. dulcis than any other of 

 the genus with which I am acquainted. B. integerrima might easily be 

 mistaken for B. vulgaris. We have also B. actinacantha, B. dictyophylla, 

 and B. pruinosa, all of which I can recommend, B. Gmmpelii, 

 B. brachybotrys, a good unnamed species from Yunnan, and others. 



Both the golden and the silver variegated forms of Aralia chinensis, 

 or, as we used to call it, Dimorphanthus mandschuricus, before the 

 Kew handbook taught us different, are very decorative, though rather 

 expensive additions to a shrubbery. A. chinensis pyramidahs is not 

 often met with in England, but is quite distinct from the type in 

 appearance. We also grow the closely allied Acanthopanax spinosum 

 (Aralia pentaphylla) , which is an effective shrub, especially when the 

 variety albo-marginata is obtained. Acanthopanax ricinifolium (Aralia 

 Maximowiczii), introduced from Japan in 1874, is an elegant plant 

 with large, deeply cut leaves and erect, spiny stem ; it is quite hardy, but 

 is a slow grower, both here and in our London garden. I will conclude 

 my remarks on the Araliaceae by mentioning Fatsia japonica, which, 

 though perfectly well known both for sub-tropical bedding-out purposes 

 and in London doctors' and dentists' reception rooms, where it vies with 

 the indiarubber plant, is much more hardy in my experience, both in its 

 green and variegated form, than most people imagine. We have several 

 plants doing quite well in sheltered positions, and in London we have a 

 large fine specimen which went through the awful winter of 1894-5 

 unprotected and uninjured. 



Many varieties of the Box family do well with us, though not, of 

 course, so well as they would on chalk or gravel. I cannot afford the 

 space to discuss them in detail, but will pick out Buxus latifolia nova, 

 B. salicifolia, and B. scnipervirens variegata pcndula for favourable 

 mention. 



