46 
none of them have any particular value or interest for the decoration 
of gardens. 
Among the American species which should find a place in all collec- 
tions of hardy shrubs are P. inodorus, P. pubescens and P. micro- 
phyllus. The first is a medium-sized plant -with arching branches and 
large, solitary, pure white, cup-shaped, scentless flowers and by many 
persons considered the most beautiful of the whole genus. P. pubes- 
cens, sometimes called P. latifolius and P. grandijiorus, and known in 
gardens under various other names, is a native of the southern Appa- 
lachian region and a shrub sometimes twenty feet high with stout erect 
stems and branches, broad leaves, and large, slightly fragrant flowers 
arranged in erect, from five- to ten-flowered racemes. P. microphylius 
is a Rocky Mountain species with leaves less than an inch long, and 
small, intensely fragrant flowers. This is a compact and hardy shrub, 
growing here in the Arboretum about three feet high and broad. 
The most distinct and the handsomest of the Asiatic species which 
flowers .here is Philadelphus purpurascens, discovered by Wilson in 
western China. It is a shrub with long arching stems from which rise 
numerous branchlets from four to six inches long and spreading at 
wide angles. On these branchlets the flowers are borne from base to 
apex on drooping stalks; they are an inch and a half long with a 
bright purple calyx and pure white petals which do not spread as they 
do on most of the species but form a bell-shaped corolla, and are ex- 
ceedingly fragrant. This is one of the handsomest of the shrubs 
brought from western China to the Arboretum. Philadelphus Magda- 
lenae from central China is another handsome plant well worth general 
cultivation. It is a broad tall shrub with arching stems, small, dark 
green, finely toothed leaves and pure white fragrant flowers an inch 
and a quarter in diameter and arranged in drooping, leafy, many- 
flowered panicles from six to ten inches in length. Few Syringas this 
year in the Arboretum have produced a larger number of flowers or 
have been more conspicuous objects of beauty. Philadelphus pekin- 
ensis from northern China and Mongolia is a stout bush rather broader 
than high which every year produces great quantities of small flowers 
tinged with yellow and is well worth a place in the garden. Another 
interesting garden plant, P. Falconerii, which is certainly Asiatic and 
probably Japanese, has narrow, lanceolate leaves and fragrant flowers 
in from one- to six-flowered racemes, and is distinct in the shape of 
its leaves and its long narrow petals. This plant was sent to the Ar- 
boretum many years ago by the Parsons Nursery at Flushing, Long 
Island, but nothing more is known of its origin or history. 
By crossing P. coronarius with P. microphylius the French hybrid- 
izer Lemoine obtained many years ago a new race to which the name 
Philadelphus Lemoinei was given. The type of this race is a perfectly 
hardy shrub four or five feet high and broad, with slender stems which 
are now bant down by the weight of innumerable flowers. These are 
intermediate in size between those of the two parents and retain the 
strong perfume of the flowers of the Rocky Mountain plant. A num- 
ber of forms of this hybrid, varying in the size and habit of the plant 
and in the size and shape of the flowers, were produced by Lemoine, 
and they are all good plants of great beauty and interest. Indeed this 
