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high, with exceedingly fragrant flowers faintly tinged with yellow. 
This plant has been somewhat neglected in recent years for species and 
hybrids with larger and showier flowers. This is unfortunate, for no 
other Syringa equals the old-fashioned Mock Orange in the delicate per- 
fume of its flowers. Varieties with yellow leaves, with double flowers 
and with narrow willow-like leaves are in the Arboretum collection but 
none of them have any particular value as garden plants. Among the 
American species best worth the attention of gardeners are Philadelphns 
inodorus, P. pvbescens, perhaps better known as P. latifolms, and P. 
microphyllus. The first is a native of the Appalachian Mountain Region 
and grows to the height of six feet; it has arching branches and large, 
solitary, pure white cup-shaped, scentless flowers. By some persons it 
is considered the most beautiful of all the species of Syringa. P. pubes- 
cens is also a plant of the southern Appalachian Mountain Region. It 
sometimes grows to the height of twenty feet; the branches are stout 
and erect, the leaves are broad, and the slightly fragrant flowers are 
arranged in leafy, erect racemes. This plant is more common in gar- 
dens than P. inodorus, and although it makes a great show when in 
bloom it is less beautiful. Philadelphus microphyllus, which rarely 
grow’s more than three feet tall, has slender stems and leaves and flowers 
smaller than those of any other Philadelphus in cultivation. What the 
flowers lack in size, however, they make up in fragrance which is 
stronger than that of the flowers of any other Syringa, and perfumes 
the air for a long distance. 
The most distinct and perhaps the handsomest of the Asiatic species 
in the Arboretum is Philadelphus purpurascens, one of Wilson’s dis- 
coveries in western China. It is a large shrub with long, gracefully 
arching stems from which rise numerous short branchlets spreading at 
right angles; on these branchlets the flowers are borne on drooping 
stalks; they are an inch and a half long with a bright purple calyx and 
white petals which do not spread as they do in most species but form 
a bell-shaped corolla. This is one of the handsomest of the shrubs 
brought from western China to the Arboretum. Philadelphus pekin- 
ensis is another Chinese species well worth a place in the garden. It 
is a tall broad shrub with arching stems, small dark green leaves and 
fragrant flowers slightly tinged with yellow. P. pekinensis has been 
growing in the Arboretum for many years and has proved a reliable 
and free flowering plant. Another old inhabitant of the Arboretum, 
P. Falconeri, which is certainly Asiatic and probably Japanese, has 
narrow lanceolate leaves and fragrant flowers in from one- to six-flow- 
ered racemes, and is distinct in the shape of the leaves and in the long 
narrow petals of the flower. The origin and history of this plant is 
not known. 
Hybrid Philadelphus. More beautiful than the species are some of the 
hybrid Syringas. The first of these to attract attention was raised in 
France before 1870 by a Monsieur Billard and is sometimes called 
“Souvenir de Billard,’’ although the correct name for it is Philadelphus 
insignia. This hybrid is one of the handsomest of the tall growing 
Syringas; it has large, snow-white flowers in long clusters, and its value 
is increased by the fact that it is the last of the whole group to flower. 
