THE HARDY AZALEA. 
241 
Azalea alta-clerense. 
THE HARDY AZALEA, ITS VARIETIES AND CULTIVATION. 
It is a curious fact, that in ground whicli 
suits this hardy American plant, the seedlings 
may be seen coming up from the seeds scat- 
tered by the plants in such quantities as to 
be like so many weeds, while in ordinary 
soil it is not only a rare thing to see one, 
but it is difficult to get them up even when 
sown. The natural situation for this family 
seems to bave been the ordinary reclaimed or 
dried bogs, where the earth is one close mass 
of half-decayed vegetables and their roots ; 
and if one could judge from the plan of cul- 
ture which succeeds best, we should be in- 
clined to fancy that the roots had not far to 
go for actual water, for certain it is, that 
when it is making its growth it does require 
a good deal of moisture. The peat earth of 
our commons, such as the whole family of 
Erica are grown in, agrees with the Azalea 
well ; and in every place where we have 
observed the plant really flourishing, it has 
been in a natural turfy peat, or ground made 
up of that peculiar soil. 
The Azalea is a deciduous plant, which 
may be called hard-wooded, for all the shoots 
of the summer in a healthy plant ripen into 
wood as hard as that of a gooseberry or 
currant-tree, and bloom buds set at the end 
of every branch. The hardest of our ordi- 
nary frosts take no effect upon the incipient 
flowers, though seemingly so much exposed 
all the wanter. 
The species of Azalea from America were 
50. 
always in great repute ; but seedlings raised 
from these have far excelled the originals in 
beauty and variety. The Belgian nursery- 
men have produced some of the best of these 
improved ones. The great fault of the ori- 
ginals, or, at least, many of them, was, that 
the flowers were small, the divisions of their 
corollas narrow, and therefore there was a 
comparative meanness in their general ap- 
pearance. Some of the improved varieties 
have very large flowers, with broad segments, 
and are altogether as imposing as the others 
were mean and common-place. There ap- 
pears to be a family link between the purple 
Rhododendron and the yellow Azalea ; for 
the late Dean of Manchester and others have 
succeeded in breeding complete crosses or 
hybrid varieties, by impregnating the Rhodo- 
dendron with the yellow Azalea ; and, al- 
though it appeared a most extraordinary 
fact, Mr. Smith, of Norbiton, produced the 
yellow colour on a perfect evergreen Rhodo- 
dendron, which at once proved that the cross 
was complete. Notwithstanding this, there 
appears hardly one striking similitude in the 
two plants, except their being of the sair.e class 
and order. The Rhododendron is a perfect 
evergreen, the Azalea is deciduous ; the 
bloom of the Rhododendron comes in a short 
spike or cone, tlie Azalea presents no^ such 
form. However, that it is of the same family 
cannot be doubted ; for not only do they 
breed together, but the produce, namely, a 
K. 
