FLOWERING TREES AND SHRUBS. 



01 



Inlhe Pea family there is a large number of excellent garden 

 plants. I can only venture here to give a selection of those members 

 ■which are least frequently seen in gardens. One of the hand- 

 somest species in the genus Genista is G. virgata, which is hardy 

 enough at Kew, many large bushes having withstood probably 

 more than thirty winters in that establishment. Every summer 

 it is laden with a profusion of golden yellow flowers. G. cetnensis, 

 a South European species, has pendulous leafless twigs when 

 the plants are old, and when in flower the tree (for it really 

 makes a small tree) looks like a golden fountain. G. germanica, 

 a charming little bush a foot high or so, is well worth growing, 

 and, in its way, is as good as the better known G. hispanica. 

 Cytisus Arduini, a native of the Maritime Alps, is a handsome 

 species, only a few inches high ; in late spring it forms a carpet 

 of deep yellow flowers. C. purpureus — one of the parents of the 

 purple Laburnum, L. Adami — is a beautiful free-flowering dwarf 

 bush, and its purple blossoms render it conspicuous in a genus 

 where the vast majority of the species have yellow flowers ; 

 there are white and blush-coloured varieties of this. The 

 purple Cytisus is much longer-lived if grown on its own roots 

 than when grafted, and apparently even grows more freely under 

 these conditions. C. purgans, a compact South European bush, 

 has golden yellow flowers ; it is one of the parents of the so- 

 called Genista prcecox, the other being the white Spanish Broom, 

 Cytisus albus. 



Amongst the Rest-harrows, or Ononis, we have 0. arragonensis, 

 a bush a couple of feet or so in height, laden with erect racemes 

 of yellow flowers. This seems to be a comparatively recent intro- 

 duction to British gardens, and, judging by the Kew experience of 

 some half-dozen years, it appears to be quite hardy enough to 

 withstand the winters near London. 0. fruticosa is a good com- 

 panion plant to the last named ; it has rosy-purple or pinkish 

 flowers. Amorpha canescens, the " Lead plant " of the United 

 States, is a beautiful species with grey- green leaves and panicles 

 of blue flowers. In nurseries a comparatively worthless plant, a 

 form of A. fruticosa, passes under the name of A. canescens. 

 Indigo jera Gerardiana, a Himalayan species, grown in some gar- 

 dens as I. Dosua and in others as I. coronillcefolia, makes a hand- 

 some wall plant, and also does well in the open ; under the last- 

 named conditions, however, it sometimes gets damaged by frost, 



