so 
FLORA AND SVLVA 
finer ways of giving beauty than by 
planting clusters of the Spindle Tree 
where their fruit will catch the autumn 
sunshine and where, from a moist bank, 
branch can hang over branch, giving 
cover, colour, and food for the pheasants 
at one and the same time. The young 
plants are cheap and easily established 
anywhere, doing well even in sandy 
soils, nearly evergreen in mild seasons, 
and spreading by suckers, though plants 
cut to a stem (and then allowed to take 
their own way) are the best for effect, 
rising at length to 20 feet or more and 
loaded down with berries in the autumn. 
A varied effect is gained by planting 
here and there the pretty forms with 
purple, white, or scarlet fruits : — afro- 
purpureus((]uite distinct from the tender 
American species of that name) has 
larger purplish leaves and fruits of wine- 
red colour ; leucocarpa^ in its many 
pale-fruiting varieties with leaves of 
brighter green, and the best, with fruits 
of clear ivory white, as beautiful as it 
is uncommon; coccinea^ its heavy clus- 
ters approaching scarlet; and other leaf 
varieties of minor interest. Or the more 
tree-like Broad-leaved Spindle Tree 
(£. latifolms) , from the Rhine valley and 
parts of southern Europe, may find a 
place for its distinct beauty. Its leaf is 
often 5 to 6 inches long and wide in 
proportion, of a more brilliant green and 
covering a thickly branching rounded 
head. The fruits are also larger, of 
more glowing red, and hung upon slen- 
der stalks of several inches, which droop 
beneath the weight and tremble prettily 
at every breath though often hanging 
thus for weeks. This also is a charming 
tree in autumn, needing more space 
than the common kind and better with 
a little more shelter, but just as freely 
fruiting and rich in colour when well 
established. Even in winter its bare 
stems give distinct shades of reddish- 
green bark, tipped with long pointed 
buds of deep dark brown — not much 
you say, and yet these wintry touches, 
hidden from our eyes the summer 
through, are precious to the child of 
Nature. RUSTICUS. 
A GARDEN ALLEGORY. 
Of late, while visiting a neighbour, I chanced 
upon a stranger buying plants, and upon ex- 
changing a few words, was flattered to find 
that he knew my passion for gardening, and 
seemed so drawn to me as to wish to share the 
joy of his own garden. Now, in general, I avoid 
those beyond the circle of my immediate ac- 
quaintance ; but the seashore, a river bank, a 
streamlet, a mountain, a forest, a tree, or a 
flower, has always its attraction for me ; so I 
accepted the invitation and fixed a day. 
True to time I reached the spot and was 
received correctly enough, but had hardly set 
out upon what was plainly an habitual round 
of self-satisfaction, before I realised that my 
host was not a gardener or even a lover of 
flowers, but a collector, and of the meanest 
stamp. His was one of those natures that re- 
joice little in the beauty of tree or flower, save 
the faint joy of its possession, but find their 
dehght in the fact that, being rare, few beside 
themselves can enjoy it, while their supreme 
satisfaction lies in luring others to admire and 
vainly desire, in order that they may be turned 
away sorrowful. I felt myself a victim, a prey 
to this unholy satisfaction, and my heart rose 
in revolt ; none the less, being careful of happi- 
ness as of something akin to sacred, and not to 
be lightly marred under whatsoever guise it 
exists, I resigned myself with the thought that, 
if such were his pleasure I would let my host 
taste it to the full. Now, when free to follow 
my own course, I like at the outset to get an 
impression of a garden in its general charac- 
ter and grouping, coming by degrees to the 
details of tree and flower ; but here the pro- 
gramme was already fixed and the ordeal 
