BULLETIN NO. 40. 
The earliest Lilac in the collection was in flower at the end of the 
last week in April and it will be the first of July before the flowers of 
the latest have faded. The Lilacs are all Old World plants and the 
genus is confined to eastern Europe, southwestern Asia, the Himalayas, 
and to eastern Asia, from eastern Siberia to western China and to 
Japan, the largest number of species having been found in China. 
Although a great improvement has been made in the flowers of the 
common Lilac of gardens {S. vulgaris) by skillful cultivators of this 
plant in France and Germany, comparatively few important results 
have yet been obtained by crossing the different species, although one 
of the most valuable of all Lilacs as a garden plant is a hybrid between 
S. viilgaris and 5. persica. This hybrid appeared in the Botanic Gar- 
den at Rouen nearly a century ago and through an error as to its or- 
igin it was unfortunately called S. chinensis. In gardens it is also 
sometimes known as S. rothomagensis. Another interesting hybrid 
Lilac is known as S. hyacinthijlora. This was raised in France and is 
the result of crossing the common Lilac with the Chinese S. oblata. 
The extremely fragrant flowers are small and double and are borne in 
small clusters. This plant, however, is chiefly valuable on account of 
its earliness for, like its Chinese parent, it is one of the first Lilacs to 
flower. Some of the recently discovered Chinese species will probably 
be less desirable garden plants than several of the better known species, 
but it is not impossible that they may prove valuable in the production 
of new hybrid races. That a great and unexpected prize may be ob- 
tained by the breeder of Lilacs is shown in the new race known 
generally as Syringa Henryi. This hybrid was obtained in Paris a few 
years ago by crossing the Hungarian S. Josikaea with the Chinese S. 
villosa. One of the plants obtained from this cross, called Lutece, is 
one of the most beautiful of all garden Lilacs, although its Hungarian 
parent is perhaps the least beautiful of the whole genus, and the last 
species most breeders would have selected for one of the parents of a 
new race of garden plants What therefore may be the result of cross- 
ing the small-flowered species collected by Wilson in western China with 
some of the large-flowered species no one can now predict. 
From the wild Lilac (S. vulgaris) of the mountains of Bulgaria, with 
its narrow clusters of small lilac-purple flowers, many varieties have 
been obtained in the three centuries since this plant reached western 
Europe. The flowers of these varieties vary from dark purplish red 
through all the shades of lilac, and to pale pink, white and blue. 
The flower-clusters vary in length and breadth, and there are single- 
flowered, semi-double and double-flowered forms. The flowers of some 
forms are more fragrant than those of others and there is a difference 
of a week or more in their time of flowering. The double-flowered 
forms usually bloom later than the single-flowered form, and the 
double flowers last longer. The wild Bulgarian plant is in the collec- 
tion and will flower this year. It is on the left-hand side of the path 
going up the hill through the Lilac Group, and the plant is labelled 
“Syringa vulgaris. Bulgaria/’ It is interesting to compare the flow- 
ers of these wild plants with those of the forms which have been im- 
proved by cultivation. There are now one hundred and sixty of these 
