92 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
I am now growing about nine species of gum trees (as the 
Australians call them), and so far they are proving themselves 
quite hardy and satisfactory, and I think them most telling and 
picturesque in the woods, especially among conifers. 
December. 
I quite forgot to say anything in my last month's notes about 
our most brilliant of November flowers, and as they are still very 
nearly at their best I may honestly describe them as plants flowering 
to perfection in winter. What I refer to is Schizostylis coccinea from 
Natal, and for the benefit of those who do not know them I will 
describe them as an elegant miniature, intensely scarlet Gladiolus, 
which, although they have been cultivated in Britain for many a 
long year, are not half so well known or half so much grown as they 
deserve to be. The Schizostylis would be much admired even if 
its flowering season were in June or July. How much more valuable 
is it therefore when flowering in winter, as it does here on this West 
Coast to such perfection ! It simply seems to revel in our soil and 
climate, though I must confess that I have never known it do, even 
tolerably, anywhere on the East Coast. 
We have to-day (December n) got vases on the table of 
Schizostylis and Christmas Roses, and what a lovely contrast they are ! 
though it is far easier to grow the former than the latter here. To 
show off the Schizostylis to perfection, one wants a cosy, warm dining- 
room, with the table all decorated with it, as ours is here, under 
electric light, and then their brilliancy is as marvellous as a bush 
of Rhododendron Thomsoni in bright April sunshine, which is about 
the most dazzling object I know of in the whole floral world. 
I had also all but forgotten to say anything about my Bamboos, 
and as they are at their very best in mid-winter, December is surely 
•the time to describe them. Visitors to my shrubberies often remark 
on their size and luxuriance, which does not perhaps strike me so 
much, being accustomed to seeing them so thriving in certain spots 
in Argyllshire. I grow a lot of varieties, and they nearly all do equally 
well. Perhaps the best doer is Arundinaria anceps, and a big mound 
of it is certainly a grand object. The other day a visitor, who was 
much struck by one of the clumps, made me stand alongside of it 
so as to judge its height, and he reckoned the canes to be fully twenty 
feet high, and all these tall shoots are the growth of one season — 
viz. a couple of months just during July and August. 
I have also three grand climbers which I must not forget to praise, 
and two of them are especially adapted to climbing up the bare stems 
of trees, as they will do without the help of any wire netting. One of 
the first objects to attract the eye of any visitor to my shrubberies 
in December is that delightful Tasmanian climber, Billardiera longi- 
folia, covered with large blue berries, climbing up a silver birch tree. 
It is not, I think, very commonly seen in North Britain, though it 
