SHORT! A QALACIFOLIA 
9 
has been found to encourage free growth. 
Other plants, which have done well 
between large stones in the rock-garden 
at Kew, are fed with yearly dressings of 
decayed pine-needles, Growth is slow 
until weir established, and to this end 
pot-reared plants may be put out in 
spring where the ground is moist in 
summer, in order to gain the free growth 
made in autumn after the summer's rest ; 
•n dividing old roots, however, 
au imn is the best time to plant. The 
Sh« . tiais untouched by cold, and pretty 
at ail seasons, with its brightly-coloured 
winter leaves. The richness of this leaf 
colour varies with the degree of sun- 
light, and is almost wanting in shade, 
though the leaves and flowers gain in 
size and the stems are much longer, 
while if fully exposed the leaves are often 
no larger than a florin, and the entire 
plant hardly 3 inches high. A spot 
fully open to the light but screened 
from hot sun is the best, giving a fairly 
free growth without loss of leaf-colour 
and without bleaching. The plant does 
well also in wide, shallow pans, grow- 
ing late into autumn and starting early 
in spring, when a good plant will carry 
40 to 50 blooms at a time with beauti- 
ful effect in the cool greenhouse. Some 
gardeners cover the plants with cold 
frames as securing larger and purer 
flowers, undamaged by wind or splash- 
ing rains. The plant of our plate is a 
pretty rose-coloured form, effective as 
a contrast to the pale flowers of the 
white kind, which is shown in the back- 
ground. Rosy and semi-double flowers 
occur but rarely among the wild plants, 
and this new variety, shown last year by 
Messrs Cutbush, is a recent and flnely- 
coloured importation. 
Shortia is a little group of only three 
kinds, named after Dr Short, an Ameri- 
can botanist. The other species are 
/S. Davidi — a plant known only to 
botanists — and S. uniflora^ from the 
north of Japan, and so near the Ameri- 
can kind as hardly to be distinguish- 
able from it. Its flowers, upon stems 
of about 4 inches, are a little smaller, 
with white stamens and pale pink petals 
veined with white \ the leaves also, 
though very similar to galacifolia^ are 
distinct in outline and dentation. It 
was the finding of this plant in 1868 
which led to renewed search for the 
American plant in North Carolina. 
Shortia imiflora is a scarce plant, as 
yet hardly known in gardens. The 
plant sometimes known as Shortia cali- 
Jornica is really Actinolepis coronaria^ 
and has nothing to do with this group. 
The Pine Close Planted. — I have lately 
measured some Spruce Fir in a German forest 
— stems of 70 to 80 feet high, and not more 
than 3 to 4 feet apart. In some cases they 
even stood closer. Every tree must have room 
to grow if it is to attain a useful size, but our 
way of planting Conifers, in which each tree 
must stand apart, is silly. In the mountains 
of Auvergne, I have seen trees of the Silver 
Fir — and very fine ones — within a yard of 
each other. In these cases no doubt climate, 
tree, and soil, suited each the other as they 
always should do if we seek good results from 
woodland planting; but if anything will do 
so, these instances tell us that the true way is 
in massing trees of this nature, and also that 
we should never try to preserve their nursery 
dress of boughs down to the ground. Tops 
as well as trunks should stand well together, 
for shelter and for mutual aid in other ways, 
and also, finally, for their beauty of stem. 
