parts of the country. It is one of a small group of typically 
southern plants that reach their northerly coastal outpost in the 
southern Delaware valley in New Jersey and adjacent Pennsyl- 
vania. Illustrating well the relationship of our native flora with 
that of Japan is Cercis japonica , almost an exact counterpart of 
our own redbud. It will be found in the shrubbery planting 
along the north side of the local flora valley, facing the reservoir. 
Like our native species, it makes blazes of color in any land- 
scape of which it is a part. Both species are perfectly hardy on 
Long Island, and may be grown in ordinary garden soil. 
Not many exotic shrubs are flowering this week, but the white 
flowers of the pearl bush ( Exochorda gratidiflora) are to be seen 
along the border mound on the Flatbush Avenue side of the 
Garden. The curious black bony fruits of this Asiatic shrub are 
still clinging on from last season. Also white flowered, but with 
opposite instead of alternate leaves, is the white kerria ( Rhodo - 
typos kerrioides) from Japan. While it begins to flower at this 
season, it is quite likely to continue blooming at intervals all 
summer. Another method of distinguishing these two white flower- 
ing shrubs from each other is that the flowers of the pearl bush 
have five petals while those of kerria have four. 
On the east side ot the bog and facing toward it in the local 
flora valley, there is a collection of twenty-one varieties of the 
lilac, all derived from the common lilac ( Syrhiga vulgaris). This 
well known favorite is, of course, not an American plant, but 
native in central Europe, where as a wild plant, it is by 
no means so common as the abundance of its numberless 
horticultural forms would suggest. In fact, the wild ancestor 
of our cultivated lilacs is a rare plant of which the Botanic 
Garden has secured a specimen from the banks of the Danube, 
collected by a correspondent of the Arnold Aboretum. This 
plant is still in the nursery, and not yet ready for installa- 
tion in the collections. Of the different forms of the lilac, some 
are white, some pink and various shades of lavender; some 
double, but most of them single. It is unfortunate that the Latin 
name of the lilac, Syi'inga, is the popular name of a very different 
shrub, Philadelphus, with large white flowers. This unfortunate 
condition arose as a result of the deliberate mixing of these 
names by Linnaeus. Before his time, Syringa was the Latin 
name of what is now Philadelphus , and it is only natural that the 
name still clings to Philadelphus as a popular name, and that 
Syringa is applied to the lilac only as a technical name by botan- 
ists. The lilac belongs to the olive family, while the syringa 
[Philadelphus) belongs to the hydrangea family. 
