THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
167 
Lilacs and Other Interesting Flowering Plants at the 
Arnold Arboretum. 
M ANY of the Lilacs are now in flower and persons 
interested in these plants should visit the Ar¬ 
boretum during the middle of May, although 
the flowers of several of the species will continue to open 
until the end of June. 
The plant with which the popular idea of Lilac is as¬ 
sociated, and which for New England and other regions 
with cold winters and hot summers, is one of the most 
beautiful and successful of all shrubs is Syringa vul¬ 
garis. It is a plant for the north, for - in southern New 
England and southward the leaves in summer are often 
temporarily disfigured by a white mildew. This plant 
was sent from Constantinople to Vienna about 1560 and 
soon reached western Europe, as the purple and white ■ 
varieties were cultivated by Gerard in England in 1597. 
The lilac was long believed to be a native of Persia, and 
it is only in comparatively recent years that its home has 
been found to be among the mountains of Bulgaria. A 
few years ago the Arboretum succeeded in obtaining 
seeds from wild Bulgarian plants and the seedlings raised 
from these seeds and bloomed last year for the first 
time. For more than two centuries only the purple and 
white varieties were cultivated; then a few selected seed¬ 
lings appeared in gardens, and in the last thirty or forty 
years a great deal of attention has been paid in France 
and Germany to improving the Lilac. In the Arboretum 
collection there are now one hundred and twenty of these 
named varieties and there are others for which room can¬ 
not be found. Further improvements in these plants by 
selection can hardly be expected; indeed some of the old¬ 
est varieties are still the best, and many of the seedlings 
of recent years are so much alike that many of them are 
not worth cultivating. Indeed, in a dozen selected var¬ 
ieties nearly all the good qualities and the greatest beauty 
of modern garden Lilacs can be found. If there is not 
much now to be expected from new seedlings of Syringa 
vulgaris, the making of hybrids between the species 
promises interesting and valuable garden plants if we can 
judge by the excellence of a few hybrid Lilacs, which 
Have already been raised. The first of these hybrids, the 
Bouen Lilac, was raised in 1795 in France and is the re¬ 
sult of crossing Syringa vulgaris with the small, late- 
1 lowered Syringa persica. The oldest name for this plant 
is unlortunately Syringa chinensis, given to it through a 
misunderstanding of its origin; it is also known as S. 
rothomagensis. It is very vigorous and is intermediate 
in character between its parents. The flowers are red¬ 
dish purple, fragrant, and produced in long comparatively 
narrow clusters which weigh down the slender branches; 
there is a variety with nearly white flowers. This hybrid 
is among the best of all garden Lilacs. 
A hybrid between S. vulgaris and S. oblata with small, 
semi-double, very fragrant, purple flowers, known as S. 
hyacinthiflora, is one of the earliest of all Lilacs to flower 
and is a vigorous, large-growing and very hardy plant. 
S. oblata, one of the parents of this hybrid, is a native of 
northern China and blooms about May twentieth. 
The large pale lilac flowers are very fragrant and are 
produced in more or less irregular clusters. The leaves 
are thick and leathery in texture, and, unlike those of all 
other Lilacs, turn in the autumn to a deep bronze red 
color. In gardens this plant becomes a tall, broad shrub, 
but the brittleness of the branches, which are often 
broken down by snow or ice, reduces its value. 
Two other Chinese Lilacs bloom as early or earlier 
than S. oblata. These are the white-flowered 5. afjinis 
and the lilac-flowered form of this species, called var. 
Giraldii. S. affinis is the common and perhaps the only 
Lilac cultivated in the gardens of Peking in which great 
masses of it are sometimes seen. The variety comes from 
the province of Shensi. The flowers of these two Lilacs 
are iragrant and beautiful, but the open irregular habit 
of growth assumed by these plants in the Arboretum is 
not attractive. If they become more shapely with greater 
age, they will be garden plants of real value. S. pubes- 
cens is just opening its very fragrant, long-tubed, rather 
small flowers; this is a native oi northern China, and is 
hardy, free-flowering, and one of the most beautiful ol 
all Lilacs. It is still little known in gardens. The Per¬ 
sian Lilacs ( S . persica) bloom rather later than the com¬ 
mon Lilacs. This beautiful plant lias been known in gar¬ 
dens for two centuries and a half, and there are purple 
and white-flowered varieties and a form with deeply- 
divided leaves (var. laciniata) w hich is less vigorous than 
the others. One of the least beautiful ot Lilacs is the 
Hungarian S. Josikaea, a tall, slender shrub with narrow 
elongated clusters of small purple tlowers which open 
later than those of the Persian Lilac. By crossing this 
plant with the Chinese S. villosa a remarkable race of hy¬ 
brids was produced in Paris a lew years ago. This hy¬ 
brid race has the vigor, good habit, and large flowers ol 
No. 3. 
