PARK AND CEMETERY. 
123 
this the only alliance of plants with these desirable 
qualities. It would often be much better to confine 
the attention to a single alliance when planting, 
than indulge the indiscriminate and heterogeneous 
“selections” copied and re-copied throughout wide 
sections of country until their repetition dulls the 
senses. There is abundant opportunity for distinc- 
tion in grouping but scarcely anything in gardening 
has received less attention. It is the employment 
Syringa Vulgaris. “Alphonse Lavallee.’’ 
of flowers and plants in proper proportions that 
makes them effective, a fact which may be fully 
realized by those who will study the disposition of 
the few colors used in Cashmere shawls and Scottish 
tartans. 
Jasminiim is a favorite genus of shrubs and 
climbers in more than 100 species distributed over 
most of the warm temperate and sub-tropical parts 
of the old world. There are many handsome and 
fragrant species found on the tropical mountains of 
Asia, growing to the tops of the trees. Some of 
these do well in the southern states, but such as 
J. sambac and its varieties are occasionally frozen 
to the ground — which is usually warm enough how- 
ever to preserve the roots — from which they grow 
again in spring. J. nudiflorum yellow, and J. 
officinale white are the hardiest, but even they 
need a south wall to develop them properly north 
of Richmond, Va. There is a plant of the latter 
in a small garden behind the Trenton Savings 
Bank several years old which is 15 feet high, but 
smothered by the annual growth of mignonnette 
vine, the tubers of which are also hardy at the foot 
of the wall. At Santa Barbara, Cal., J. Sambac 
and many other tender species thrive excellently. 
Nyctanthes arbor-tristis is a large East Indian 
shrub with deliciously night-scented white flowers, 
which, as they fall, are woven into wreaths for the 
hair by the Hindoo women. It will not bear frost. 
Forsythia has two or three forms without much 
individual character, the variations, which are most 
obvious, being from upright to drooping growth. 
All are yellow early flowering shrubs from China 
and Japan and hardy to the lower lakes. The 
inky-purple foliage of these and other plants of the 
alliance is a distinct color tone in the autumn land- 
scape. 
Syringa “lilac,” has perhaps eight or ten species 
from Eastern Europe and temperate Asia, S. vul- 
garis has developed a perfect host of garden forms 
during the last thirty years. Some of these are 
white, such as Marie Legraye, Frau Damman and 
Alba Grandiflora. Some are bluish, such as 
Coerulea superba, Lemoinei, President Grevy and 
Alphonse Lavallee. Others are reddish lilac, such 
as rubra insignis, rubella fl. pi., Charles the Xth, 
and Souv. de Louis Spath. Then many shades of 
pinkish and purplish lilac occur, all of which may 
be found most minutely described in nursery cata- 
logues. The original form is often found as a 
wildling on abandoned garden sites in the northern 
states, where it perpetuates itself by suckers, not 
by seed, so far as I have seen. The newer varie- 
ties are mostly imported as grafted plants, and the 
stocks are either the common form or privet. If 
the top dies, these inferior roots are by no means 
so desirable, but may delude people into believing 
the suckers they throw up are worth caring for. I 
would suggest planting new lilacs in a sloping 
manner, so as to bring the heads a little below the 
surface where they may be treated as layers and 
encouraged to make their own roots and so give a 
better chance to perpetuate them, for, it may be 
added, some of the plants of the alliance used as 
stocks are subject to borers. S. persica, with white 
and other varieties, is from the Afghan mountains 
eastward. S. chinensis is regarded as a garden 
form, Rothamagensis and some other of its varia- 
tions possibly influenced by pollen from vulgaris. 
The tree lilacs are later flowering, quite 
hardy, and, in fact, do best northward. S. Emodi 
is Himalayan and Chinese, with pink buds and 
whitish flowers; it has reddish leaved and a varie- 
gated form. S. josikaea has a good habit and' 
bluish purple scentless flowers. S. japonica (of 
which there are 30- foot specimens in the states) 
has whitish flowers. S. pekinensis is also white 
and has a pendulous form. S. villosa has pinkish 
flowers, fading to whitish, and flowering earlier in 
June, x^t the south common lilacs fail, fungous 
growths cover their foliage. 
yames MacPherson. 
