292 
FLORA AND SYLVA 
portion as the growths are less ripened. 
With us therefore the shady places often 
advocated for America should be ex- 
changed for sunny and sheltered spots, 
with a constantly moist soil composed 
of sandy peat or leaf-soil, and at the 
same time perfect drainage. It is not 
easy to find these conditions, and in 
this lies the difficulty found in grow- 
ing the Gordonias. They seem to need 
the protection and the reflected warmth 
of a wall, and yet the dryness of such 
a position is against them. But admit- 
ting the difficulty, their leaves and flow- 
ers are so handsome that the trouble 
involved in suiting them is well repaid 
by the rich beauty which places these 
among the most charming of flower- 
ing trees. In all the introduced kinds 
the flowers are white or creamy-white, 
with a marked general resemblance, so 
that, while our engraving shows one of 
the tender species, it well suggests the 
peculiar charm of the Gordonias as a 
whole. The name Gordonia was given 
in honour of Alexander Gordon, a friend 
of the botanist by whom the group was 
founded. The following species have 
been introduced : — 
G. anomala. — A tender evergreen shrub 
from Hong-Kong, where it abounds in the 
woods of the Happy Valley. Planted out in 
peat soil under glass, the shrub reaches a large 
size and blooms from an early stage, with pure 
white flowers 2 to 3 inches across coming from 
November. Leaf dark green and glossy, 3 to 
6 inches long. Syns. Camellia axillaris^ and 
Polyspora axillaris. 
G. grandis. — Another tender kind requiring 
greenhouse treatment and handsome when 
well-grown. The flowers, creamy-white, of 
5 large petals united at the base, unfold during 
spring; the leaves are thick and glossy, ap- 
proaching those of the common Laurel in shape 
and texture. A plant of this is growing in 
the open air at Trewidden, Cornwall. 
G. Lasianthiis. — Loblolly Bay. A shrub 
rarely exceeding 10 or 12 feet in Europe but 
a tree of the second size in its own country, 
where at maturity the trunk shows a diameter 
of 20 inches and a height of 60 to 70 feet. 
It is of very erect growth, even the side 
branches striking upwards as a close pyramid 
in young trees, though with age they become 
more spreading. While taller and more vigor- 
ous than pubescens it is rather more tender, 
perhaps because more nearly evergreen than 
that kind, though apt to lose its leaves in a 
severe winter. It differs from it in its rather 
smaller and more fragrant flowers, carried on 
] ong stems, whereas in pubesce?7s they are almost 
stemless. The handsome leaves are thick and 
glossy, dark-green, 4 to 6 inches long, and 
oval in shape, narrowing gradually to the 
base. Before falling they pass through phases 
of gold, crimson, and purple, rarely seen in 
evergreens, and while the effect is broken by 
the deep green of younger leaves, it is often 
sufficiently pronounced to be an added charm 
in winter and early spring. The flowers follow 
one another as a long succession from July to 
September, the broad-cupped petals finely con- 
trasted with the ring of yellow stamens. 
G. pubescens. — This shrub is very like the 
last in general effect, but loses its leaves in 
winter and is a smaller tree, rarely much 
above 20 feet high in its own land, and with 
us hardly above the size of a low dense shrub 
of 4 to 6 feet. It may be known from the 
other American Gordonia by its thinner leaves 
covered beneath with pale down ; the shorter 
stems of its more or less hairy flowers ; and 
the thin smooth bark of its main stems. The 
sweet-smelHng flowers are 3 or more inches 
across, and in the States appear in unbroken 
profusion from early in August, but with us 
they are rarely seen much before September, 
and beginning late they are less abundant. 
The leaves turn a vivid scarlet and fall off in 
autumn. From the place of its discovery this 
kind is sometimes known as G. Altamaha, and 
was at first called Franklinia after the famous 
Dr. Franklin. B, 
