42 ' 
row, willow-like leaves, but 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. microphyllus. 
The first is a medium-sized plant with arching branches and large, sol¬ 
itary, pure white, cup-shaped, scentless flowers and by many persons 
considered the most beautiful of the whole genus. P. pubescens, some¬ 
times called P. latifolius, and P. grandiflorus, and known in gardens 
under various names, is a native of the southern Appalachian 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-fiowered racemes. P. microphyllus is a 
Rocky Mountain species with leaves less than an inch long, and small, 
intensely fragrant flowers. This is a compact shrub, about three feet 
high and broad, but unfortunately not always hardy here. 
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 exceedingly 
fragrant. This is one of the handsomest of the shrubs brought from 
western China to the Arboretum. Philadelphus Magdalenae from cen¬ 
tral 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. Philadelphus pekinensis from north¬ 
ern 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 plant, 
P. Falconerii, 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 its leaves and in its long 
narrow petals. This plant was sent to the Arboretum many years ago 
by the Parsons Nursery at Flushing, Long Island, but nothing more is 
known of its origin or history. 
In few genera of garden shrubs have natural cross fertilization and 
the art of the plant-breeder produced greater results than in Philadel¬ 
phus. The first of these hybrids 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 
insignis. 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. 
The largest Syringa in our northern gardens, where plants thirty feet 
high and correspondingly broad are sometimes found, appears to be a 
hybrid between P. coronarius and some unrecognized species. To this 
plant, whose history is unknown, the name of Philadelphus maximus 
has been given. Another hybrid called Philadelphus splendens appeared 
