Sept. 2, 1901.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
163 
RHODODENDRONS. 
After the floral flood-tide of early spring, there 
is a brief but perceptible ebb in tlie beauty of the 
lawn and garden-border. The ever-welcome bulbs, 
•whose gay but not deep colourings remind us a 
little of the tieniulous winter sunshine, have had 
their hardy day, and Nature pauses as if to gather 
strength for the production of the richer and riper 
beauties of the glowing summer. But this won- 
derful pause is garlanded for us with a magni- 
ficent display of flowers, which belong to the land- 
scape rather than the parterre. They do not 
easily lend themselves to the restrictions of " in- 
teriors, nor to the narrow embraces of the tiower- 
vase. But when a dry May-month gives them 
their opportunity the tree flowers are not to be 
surpassed for the veritable enchantment which 
they work upon the scene. The half-dozen homely 
kinds upon which we customarily rely for this 
mas^ical effect have been this year close confederates 
and have conspired to delight us by an almost 
simultaneous effort. The white and pink of the 
chestnuts have challenged the white and pink of 
the hawthorn. Honours are fairly easy, but, as 
if to abate any nascent feeling of rivalry, the softer 
syringa with its white and " lilac " has held a 
commanding position between its loftier fellows. 
And the golden tassels of the laburnum have so 
brightened and relieved the competition that the 
wide sylvan stage has been a scene of the most 
refreshing variety and enjoyment. 
Flora thus descends to our meadows and pastures 
by way of the trees ; and true to time and season, 
and her own good will, she finally alights upon the 
iawn in a blaze of triumph lighted among the dark 
evergreen leaves of the rhododendrons. The fire has 
been smouldering for some days, but the punctua- 
lity of the plants in " lighting up " is proverbial. 
They seem to claim the early days of June as their 
special prerogative, and seldom indeed do they dis- 
appoint us. As handsome evergreen shrubs they 
do splendid service all through the year : and 
when their too-fleeting glories have passed away, 
we may enter the portals of the garden proper, 
with ail its marvellous assortment of " bedded-out" 
plants, making themselves at home, and gradually 
expanding into blossom. But for the moment, the 
rhododendrons hold us ; aor are we in the least 
doubt as to the point of view from which they are, 
and should be, popularly regarded. The botanist 
tells us— in the seemingly callous, but perhaps 
necessary, way which makes so many persons 
shrink from him— that "the rhododendron is a 
genus of glabi'ous, pubescent, tomentose, or lepi- 
doted shrub." N'>h even Mrs Gamp herself would 
have been provoked into a "deniging" of this 
proposition. But a pleasant voice floats across 
the lawn freighted with a dictum much mom ger- 
mane to the occasion. "Are they not peifeeily 
lovely ? " The precise value of which phrase iies 
in the intonation, which, unhappily is not produci- 
ble in print. Bnt'it is true — so far as it goes. 
Critics, indeed, might demur to it, as placing the 
rhododendron on the same plane of comparison as 
its latest fanciful imitation in ladies' headgear. 
But that is a captious objection. The flowers are 
lovely. The mere man only employs a more s«[uare- 
set word when he calls them magnificent. 
When the early settlers in Virginia had time 
to look about them their first astonishment was at 
the splendour of the autumnal forest tints. Against 
the dark livery of the pines were set the golden 
yellow of the beech, the red foliage of the maple, 
21 
and the glories of th? scarlet oak. Eat another 
natural feature presently drew their eyes down- 
ward. The mountain-sides and valleys were thickly 
covered with a handsome shrub which they soon 
learned to call the mountain laurel, and which in 
its season bore abundant flowers of a "p.iie blush." 
This was simply the quite unaulliorised American 
edition of the rhododentUon, which does not ap- 
pear to have found its way to England much be- 
fore the beginning of the last century. Even its 
great Oriental predecessor, the Pontic rhododendron, 
from which so many ot our present varieties have 
sprung, was little known among us before the early 
years of the IStli century. Since that time, however, 
the florists have found the tribe so very teachable 
that they have devoted much time and skill to their 
higher instruction. Both the oleander and azalea 
are scientifically included in the family, which even 
at the beginning of its school caieer was one of the 
greatest promise. And now in the parks of town 
and country rhododendrons have long been flowers 
of course. Planted "walks ' have enlivened the 
more sombre vistas of forest scenery, and no 
garden which attains to the dignity of a lawn can 
now afford to dispense with them. The very 
severity of their dark, leathery, but always 
attractive, leafage affords only the greater contrast 
to the vivid splendour of the flowers. The colours 
of the more delicate greenhouse kinds are a won- 
derful feast for the eye, passing from white to 
silvery, and through the softest sulphur-shades to 
yellow and ileepest orange. In another direction 
we are led through the gradations of rose and 
mauve to the most gorgeous depths of crimson 
and purple. Nor are their open-air sisters much 
behind them, though here we are scarcely in the 
mood for nice discrimination. The flowers strike 
us by their splendid massing, and the one truth 
which impresses us is that they are the glory of 
the lawn in early June. 
Travellers take pleasure in assuring ua that we 
know but little of the possibilities of the rhodo- 
dendrons until we have seen their lavish beauties 
in the Himalayas, ft niay well be so, but then 
the entire natural scale ditt'ers- accordingly, and 
contrast is only greater or less by the sum of its 
surroundings. We are standing on a verdant 
stretch of English turf, and, at least for the mo- 
ment, are willing to leave comparisons to those 
who seek them. Our own varieties are "beautiful 
exceedingly," and that suffices. The plants yield 
their blossoms freely; there is nothing of the coyness 
and reluctance which seems a natural, though 
not always unpleasant, feature of so many of our 
English beauties, i^ut this is mainly due to the 
shrub's natural habit. When once the rhododen- 
dron is in flower, it seems to be all flower, because 
the innumerable blooms are socompletely unveiled. 
Every flower-head is a mass o£ separate flowers, 
the calyx of each being so very slight that the 
whole beauty of the bloom is unfolded, Let us 
gaze at the rhododendrons while we may. Fast 
fleets their transient beauty, and the greater 
perhaps is the delight of its return. — Globe, 
June lOth. 
A TYPICAL MEXICAN RUBBER 
PLANTER. 
The "India Rubber World" has published so 
much in the last few months regarding the planting 
of India-rubber in Mexico, that further information 
regarding the individuals who have made a study 
of this question should be of interest to its readers 
