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it grows in the south is sometimes a tree thirty feet tall with a stout 
trunk a foot in diameter, but here in the Arboretum it is always bush- 
like in habit. The leaves are often six inches long and four inches 
wide, of a cheerful light and yellow-green color, and in the autumn they 
turn to most brilliant shades of orange and scarlet. In this autumn 
color is found the chief ornamental value of this plant, for the length- 
ening stalks of the flowers makes little show in comparison with those 
of the European plant. Cotinus americanus grows only in a few iso- 
lated stations in the southern states from northern Alabama to south- 
ern Missouri, Oklahoma and eastern Texas, and has been considered a 
comparatively rare plant, but this year Mr. E. J. Palmer has found it 
as a small shrub covering thousands of acres in the rocky canons and 
on the steep hillsides near Spanish Pass in Kendall County, Texas. 
Philadeiphus. Few genera of hardy shrubs give as much beauty to 
summer gardens as Philadeiphus or, as it is popularly called. Mock 
Orange or Syringa, and to few genera of cultivated plants have so many 
important additions been made in recent years. As early as 1811 Eng- 
lish gardeners cultivated only two species, and twelve years later only 
eleven species were recognized by botanists. Now there are established 
in the Arboretum some thirty species and a large number of varieties 
and hybrids. The beauty of these plants is found in their white flowers; 
the fruit, which is a dry capsule, has as little beauty as that of a 
Lilac. There is nothing particularly interesting in the habit of any of 
the plants, and the leaves fall early in the autumn without change of 
color. As flowering plants, however, not many shrubs surpass them 
in beauty, and the importance of the group is increased by the length 
of the flowering season which in the Arboretum extends through six 
weeks. Philadeiphus has gained most by the art of the hybridizer, 
although the handsomest, perhaps, of the Old World species, P. pur- 
purascens, is of recent introduction, having been discovered only a few 
years ago by Wilson in China. The first of the hybrids to attract 
attention was raised in France before 1870 by Monsieur Billard and is 
sometimes called Souvenir de Billard, although the oldest and correct 
name for this plant is P. insignis. This is one of the most beautiful of 
the large-growing Syringas and one of the last of the whole group to 
flower. A hybrid between two of the American species appeared a 
few years ago in the Arboretum and has been named P. splendens. 
This is a large-growing and very vigorous plant with unusually large 
scentless flowers, and one of the handsomest plants in the collection. 
Another supposed hybrid is P. maximus; this grows to a larger size than 
other Syringas and plants from twenty to thirty feet high can sometimes 
be found in old Massachusetts gardens where this plant is not rare. 
One of the greatest gardening triumphs was achieved by Lemoine at 
Nancy when a few years ago he had the happy inspiration to cross P. 
coronarius, the Mock Orange of old gardens, with the dwarf Rocky 
Mountain P. microphyllus, a shrub with small leaves and small very 
fragrant flowers. The first plant obtained by this cross was named 
Philadeiphus Lemoinei; it is a perfectly hardy shrub four or five feet 
high and broad, with slender stems which are now bending under the 
weight of fragrant flowers which are intermediate in size between those 
of the two parents. Many distinct forms of this hybrid are in the col- 
lection. 
