The last species to flower, the Clammy Azalea or Swamp Honey- 
suckle, is a common inhabitant of the swamps of the eastern states, 
especially of those in the neighborhood of the coast. The rather small 
flowers are pure white and covered with clammy hairs, and the leaves 
are often of a pale bluish color, especially on their lower surface. 
This plant is valuable for the lateness of its flowers which do not open 
until the flowers of most hardy shrubs have passed, and for their 
fragrance. 
These shrubs are all perfectly hardy in eastern Massachusetts and 
flourish in all exposures and in good garden soil, although like all 
Rhododendrons they cannot be made to live in soil strongly impreg- 
nated with lime. They are not often cultivated because it is not easy 
to find these plants in nurseries, for few nurserymen, especially in the 
United States, care to take the trouble to raise such plants from 
seeds, the only satisfactory way in which they can be propagated. In 
beauty, constitution and hardiness they are superior to the so-called 
Ghent Azaleas which are hybrids between the species from the Cau- 
casus, which is not hardy here, and some of the American species. 
The Ghent Azaleas are favorites with European nurserymen who propa- 
gate them by grafting and they are imported in large numbers into this 
country. Here they grow slowly; many of the varieties are not at all 
hardy and others are liable to lose large branches in severe winters. 
The American species are better garden plants here, too, than the 
yellow-flowered Asiatic species, R. japonicum, usually called Azalea 
mollis in gardens, a common Japanese and Korean plant, and the 
Chinese R. sinense or the hybrids of these two species. Azalea mollis 
is hardy and free-flowering but the plants are short-lived in this coun- 
try. The little known R. sinense with its beautiful yellow flowers is 
hardy but the flower-buds have usually been killed in each of the two 
or three winters this plant has been exposed here in the open ground. 
The Japanese and Chinese Viburnum tomentosum is now in flower. 
This is a large shrub with wide-spreading horizontal branches along 
the upper side of which the flat flower-clusters are thickly placed and 
are surrounded by a ring of pure white sterile or ray flowers which 
make the conspicuous part of the inflorescence. The flowers are fol- 
lowed in the late autumn by brilliant fruits which, scarlet at first, be- 
come black when fully ripe. The leaves turn orange and scarlet in the 
autumn. There is an interesting narrow-leaved form of this plant 
(var. lanceolatum) , discovered in Japan by Professor Sargent, now flow- 
ering in the Arboretum. There are also two “Snowball’ ’ forms of this 
plant developed in Japanese gardens and much cultivated here and in 
Europe under the name of Viburnum plicatum. The correct name of 
the more common of these two plants is V. tomentosum , var. dilatatum. 
This is the Japanese Snowball usually cultivated in this country and it 
will not be in its best condition for another week or ten days. The 
other form (V. tomentosum, var. dilatatum, f. rotundifolium), which ap- 
pears to be a dwarfer plant, has been in flower for the last ten days. 
These forms of Viburnum can be seen growing together in the large 
collection of Viburnums recently arranged on Bussey Hill Road just 
before it turns into the Valley Road near the Centre Street Gate. 
Viburnum tomentosum and the Corean V. Carlesii are ornamental 
plants of great beauty and value but, with the exception of these two 
plants, none of the eastern Asiatic species compare in value as decora- 
