I Beautiful Flowering Shrubs COMMON SYRINGA Philadelphus coronartas Beautiful Flowering Shrubs By G. Clarke Nuttall, B.Sc. With 40 Illustrations from Autochromes by H. Essenhigh Corke F.R.P.S., F.R.H.S. Cassell & Company, Ltd London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne Contents CHAPTER PAGE 1. DAPHNE i 2. THE GOLDEN BELL ...... 9 3. THE FLOWERING CURRANTS ..... 15 4. THE BARBERRIES . . . . . . .25 5. THE QUINCES . . . . . . -35 6. ROSEMARY . 43 7. THE GORSE 53 8. ANDROMEDA AND ITS ALLIES .... 60 9. AZARA 69 10. KERRIA, OR JEW'S MALLOW . . . 72 11. THE LAURELS ....... 77 12. CEANOTHUS, OR " MOUNTAIN SWEET " . .84 13. THE AZALEAS . . . . . . .90 14. LILACS AND PRIVETS 100 15. THE KALMIAS . . . . . . .112 16. MEXICAN ORANGE AND SKIMMIA . . . .118 17. THE WEIGELAS 124 18. THE EVERGREEN RHODODENDRONS. . ' . 129 19. THE DEUTZIAS ....... 139 20. BROOMS AND GENISTAS 144 21. SYRINGA, OR MOCK ORANGE ... . 152 22. THE ESCALLONIAS 159 23. THE BUDDLEIAS . 165 Contents CHAPTER PAGB 24. THE BRIER ROSES 171 25. CORONILLA AND COLUTEA (THE " BASTARD SENNAS ") 179 26. THE COTONEASTERS 185 27. THE ROCK ROSES, OR CISTEN ROSES, HOLLY ROSES, OR GUM CISTUSES ...... 191 28. THE DAISY BUSHES (Olearias) .... 200 29. THE SPIRAEAS ....... 205 30. THE SHRUBBY VERONICAS 214 31. FUCHSIA . ... . . . . 221 32. THE HYDRANGEAS. ...... 226 33. ST. JOHN'S WORTS 233 34. AUCUBA . . . . . . . 242 35. THE WITCH HAZELS 249 36. LAURUSTINUS AND THE VIBURNUMS . . . 254 37. GARRYA 261 38. SOME RARER OR MORE* TENDER SHRUBS . . 265 VI List of Illustrations COMMON SYRINGA (Philadelphus coronarim) . Frontispiece FACING PAGE MEZEREON (Daphne mezereum) ..... HANGING GOLDEN BELL (Forsythia suspensa) FLOWERING CURRANT (Ribes sanguineum) . MAHONIA (OREGON GRAPE) (Berberis aquifolium) . DARWINIAN BARBERRY (Berberis Darwinii) . JAPONICA (JAPANESE QUINCE) (Cydonia japonica) . ROSEMARY (Rosmarinus officinalis) .... DOUBLE GORSE (Ulex Europceus : var. flore pleno) FETTER BUSH (Pieris floribunda) SMALL-LEAVED AZARA (Azara microphylla) . DOUBLE KERRIA (Kerria japonica : var. flore pleno) PORTUGAL LAUREL (Prunus lusitanica) CEANOTHUS, OR " MOUNTAIN SWEET " (Ceanothus azureus) AZALEA ......... COMMON LILAC (Syringa vulgaris) ..... CALICO BUSH (Kalmia latifolia) MEXICAN ORANGE (Choisya ternata) .... COMMON WEIGELA (Weigela rosea) .... RHODODENDRON (Rhododendron arboreum) Vll Illustrations FACING PAGE DEUTZIA (Deutzia crenata) ...... COMMON BROOM (Cytisus scoparius) .... ESCALLONIA (Escallonia macrantha) .... BUDDLEIA (Buddleia variabilis) ..... PENZANCE BRIER SCORPION SENNA (Coronilla emerus) .... COTONEASTER (Cotoneaster buxifolia) .... ROCK ROSE (Cistus florentinus) ..... DAISY TREE (Olearia Haastii) ..... SPIRAEA (Spirtea Douglasi) VERONICA (Veronica Andersonii) . . FUCHSIA (Fuchsia macrostemma) ..... COMMON HYDRANGEA (Hydrangea hortensis) . LARGE-FLOWERED ST. JOHN'S WORT (Hypericum caly- cinum) ........ 238 AUCUBA, OR " VARIEGATED LAUREL " (Aucuba japonica) 244 JAPANESE WITCH HAZEL (Hamamelis japonica : var. arborea) ........ 253 LAURUSTINUS (Viburnum Tinus) 256 GARRYA (Garry a elliptica) . . . . . . 262 CHILIAN " FIRE-BUSH " (Embothrium coccineum) . . 266 Tricmpidaria lanceolata ...... 270 Vlll INTRODUCTION FLOWERING SHRUBS as a class have been greatly neglected in this country. In private grounds and public parks, where gardening is carried on as a fine art by expert professional gar- deners, they have received a certain — though limited — measure of attention, but in the smaller gardens, cultivated more or less by their owners aided by the commonplace gardener, their value, their charm, and, above all, their variety are now only beginning to be dimly appreciated. Of course, there are those half dozen or so kinds which meet one's eye everywhere — the Laurustinus, Lilac and Syringa (Philadelphus), the Cherry Laurel (usually cropped so as not to flower), the Flowering Currant (only the common red variety), the Broom perhaps, and the Rhododendron, and those three or four others more or less common, a Veronica, the Mahonia (Berberis aquifolium), the Japonica (Cy- donia) and the Kerria; but the rest — the vast majority — so far as the ordinary garden is concerned are more often than not conspicuous by their absence. And yet, if garden owners would but realise it, they have in them the most valuable asset possible in the IX Introduction beautifying and diversifying of a garden. They give just sufficient variation of level to the general colour line, they break up the flat monotony that too often spoils a small patch of ground, and they have none of the evil overshadowing effects and the abruptness of trees, while in the infinitude of choice among them lies a great enhancement of interest. Look, for instance, at the choice in Spiraeas, from the crimson, flat clustered S. japonica to the lovely cascaded S. Lindleyana ; in Barberries, from the vivid grace of B. stenophylla in the spring to the sunset- like flare of the B. Thunbergii in the autumn ; in the Azaleas, whose brilliant meteor flash in May gives a perfect orgy of colour joy. From the East and from the West the flowering shrubs of many a genus, and of many a species in that genus, press upon our notice. From North America there come the Kalmias, the Ceanothuses, the golden as well as the red Flowering Currants, the Garrya, the Mahonia (Berberis aqui- foliMnt), certain Rhododendrons, and the Mexican Orange (Ckoisya). From South America we have the Darwinian Bar- berry, the Escallonias, Azara, the Fire Bush (Emboth- rium), and Fuchsias. From China and Japan there pour rich stores indeed — Forsythias, Weigela, Kerrias, the Aucuba, won- Introduction derful Barberries, many pretty Cotoneasters, Deutzias, Hydrangeas, Syringas, unique Viburnums, Buddleias, and Spiraeas. From New Zealand appear some of our latest and most popular acquisitions — the Olearias, Shrubby Veronicas and the Pittosporums, all exclusively native to that land. A few belong to our continent of Europe — the Rosemary, Gorse, Common Syringa or Mock Orange, the Laurustinus and the Common Barberry; while some — like Mezereon (Daphne), the Spurge Laurel, the Wayfaring Tree (Viburnum), Broom and Gorse are even native to Great Britain. The Hypericums are everywhere in the North Temperate Zone. Spiraeas, Witch Hazels, Rhododen- drons, Azaleas, grace both the New World and the Orient. Large numbers of these varied genera, and often many species in the genera, will grow in our gardens with- out any special care. Many, hitherto unknown to the average gardener, amateur or professional, will flourish with only a little extra attention ; while some, generally dismissed casually as not suited to our English climate, respond generously to a genuine attempt to grow them. If only one could sweep away nine-tenths of the gross- feeding Laurels and Aucubas that crowd up our small gardens, and replace them with gayer, lighter shrubs, XI Introduction one would have done much to add colour to our land. The age to which a shrub may attain is an interesting question. Some, like Laurels, Aucubas and Rhododendrons may live a hundred years or more, and instances are known of these shrubs at least eighty years old which are still apparently in the prime of life. Other shrubs, like Broom, Ceanothus and Daphne, are old at twenty ; while others, such as certain Roses, have run their career in half that time. Unlike the case with trees, few records have been kept of the actual planting of shrubs ; it is desirable that more definite information should be acquired on this point. Lastly, what precisely is a shrub — how limited, how defined? Here is the standard definition: "A shrub is a woody stemmed perennial plant distinguished from a tree chiefly by its low stature, and by having several or many primary stems arising from a point at or near the ground." Xll BEAUTIFUL FLOWERING SHRUBS i DAPHNE Daphne mezereum . . Mezereon „ „ var. alba White Mezereon „ cneorum . . Garland Flower „ laureola . . Spurge Laurel MEZEREON — Daphne mezereum — the shrub with the sweet-sounding name and the sinister reputation, the shrub whose delicate fragrance urges to a nearer acquaintanceship, but whose poisonous juices severely punish too presumptuous an interfer- ence. Now claimed as a native in some of the more southerly counties of England, it was not so recognised when Gerard wrote his Herball in the days of Queen Elizabeth, though that renowned herbalist knew it well as a plant " that growes naturally in moist and shadowy woods of most of the East countries, especially about Melvon in Poland, from whence," he tells us, " I have had great plenty for my garden." He gives " Germane Olive Spurge" as its commonest name then, but adds, Beautiful Flowering Shrubs " the apothecaries of our countrey call it Mezereon, but wee had rather name it Chamalea Germanica or Dutch Mezereon." Other names that it has borne at dif- ferent times are Lady Laurel, Spurge Olive, Spurge Flax, Flowering Spurge, Dwarf Bay, and Mesilion, the countryside variant of its usual name. Mezereon, that quaintest of names, is derived from the old Persian name Madzaryon, meaning " destroyer of life," because all parts of the shrub are poisonous. An old-fashioned little shrub, not more than four or five feet high, it was once in every garden, but its popularity somewhat waned as its medicinal reputa- tion diminished. However, it is now rapidly coming back into favour, and deservedly so, for at that bleak moment when winter is beginning to yield to spring it is "Though leafless, well attired and thick beset With blushing wreaths investing every spray." (Cowper.) In other words its rose-purple flowers break very early into bloom and — stalkless and massed together — clothe the tops of the bare branches as with a garment, and give a warm gay touch when the garden most needs it. Well has it been called " one of the spring gems of the year." On probing among the flowers one discovers that they are not set singly upon the branches, but are in little spreading bunches of three Daphne or four together, every bunch surrounded by dark red scales, and so closely clustered that they seem actually to crowd upon each other. These bunches arise immediately above the spots where leaves grew in the previous year, and always on one-year-old shoots. Each flower is cross shaped, getting its form from four rose-coloured petals, so called, though really in the Mezereon the petals have altogether vanished, and it is the sepals — usually green in a flower — that have become petal-like and pretty. Below the spreading cross of their upper part they unite to form a thick tube, and upon this tube are set eight stamens, mostly head with little stalk. Four of the eight are placed high up near the mouth of the tube and in the centre of the rose-purple sepals, and the remaining four are set lower down the tube and alternating with the upper four. It is largely because the top four are opposite the floral leaves instead of alternating with them, as is the rule, that we consider that the corolla of petals has disappeared during the development of the flower. The stamen heads — the anthers — are full of yellow pollen and, when ripe, slit open on their inner faces. If one next split the flower down, one sees at the very base of the tube a bright green urn-shaped ovary, standing on a tiny pedestal and surmounted by a spreading pale-purple disc, which ovary contains a solitary seed. Indeed the scheme of colour in the 3 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs heart of a Mezereon flower is at a brilliant pitch, so vivid is the green of the ovary, so bright is the yellow of the anthers, so rich the rose-purple of the sepals. When the flower opens both sets of essential organs are ready to act — the anthers above opening to dis- charge their pollen, the flat stigma disc below waiting ready to receive it ; and it does not seem as though the Mezereon, at any rate, cared much about being fer- tilised from its neighbours, in spite of its bountiful supply of honey and scent. Occasionally, no doubt, a grain of pollen may be brought to it by some fairly long-tongued bee or moth — the plant has quite a number of visitors, survivors of the winter cold, especially hive bees — but the great chance is that one of its own pollen grains may fall or be pushed down on to its own stigma and so self-fertilisation happen, and it needs but a single grain of pollen to fertilise the solitary ovule. The only thing that militates against self-fertilisation is that many of the flowers are horizontal, so that the stamens are not actually straight above the receptive stigma, ; but indeed, if flowers are quite isolated from any chance of visitors, they still set fruit freely. It almost seems, in fact, as if the plant actually puts difficulties in the way of visitors, the stamens block the tube mouth so much, and the honey which lies in a nectary at the base of the ovary is so difficult of access. 4 MEZEREON Daphne Mezereum Daphne Each flower lives from a week to a fortnight or even three weeks (if the weather is very mild), and its scent is strong and very fragrant. " For a few hours the whole of a London house smells sweeter for its [the Mezereon's] presence. Its perfume is peculiar and not quite like anything else I know," says a recent writer.* Then, if not pollinated, it withers and is shed ; but if lucky enough to have been fertilised, the ovary quickly swells, bursting the calyx tube, and by May it is a smooth green berry of full size. In late June and early July it ripens into a most alluring scarlet berry whose sweet watery pulp contains the single big black seed. In the berries the plant stores its most virulent portion of poison, and various cases are on record of their fatal effects upon both man and beast. Gerard quaintly remarks, "Also if a drunkard doe eat one graine or berry of this plant, he cannot be allured to drinke any drinke at that time, such will be the heate in his mouth and choking in the throat." And he adds the general warning that this plant is " very dangerous to be taken into the body . . . leaving if it be chewed) such an heate and burning in the throat that it is hard to be quenched," a warning that is here heartily endorsed, for even while penning the above lines the writer absently bit and tasted a rose-purple flower and is now left with burning throat * Mrs. Earle, " Potpourri from a Surrey Garden." B 5 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs and irritated mouth greatly to regret the lapse of thought Still, as a medicinal plant the Mezereon has ranked high in the past. It was a principal ingredient in the celebrated ''Lisbon diet drink" of the eighteenth century, and pieces of the bark, macerated in vinegar, were used for very effectual blisters. Ointment, too, was made from both bark and berries, while dried pieces of the large and woody root were one of the many infallible cures for toothache advocated by our forbears. In spite of the fact that Mezereon berries have served as poison for foxes and wolves, according to Linnaeus, birds appreciate them greatly, robins and blackbirds in particular, while sparrows will carefully pick the single seed out of an unripe berry and reject the pulp. The seeds germinate freely, and it is doubt- less due to the kind offices of the birds that the shrub has become naturalised among us. The leaves are only beginning to appear as the flowers pass over. The opening leaf-buds form quaint little tufts at the very tip of the shoots above the flowers, or from lateral buds lower down. Each bud is long and pointed, and consists of many leaves rolled one round another; and as the leaves successively detach themselves and spread back they form a cir- cular disc, in the centre of which the yet unfolded leaves stand as a circular pinnacle. At one stage Daphne one might imagine that every flower- wreathed shoot wore a wide-brimmed pointed hat. The leaves are of quite simple outline, long and rather narrow and of smooth surface ; at first of the palest green colour they darken as they age. There are two varieties of the Daphne, viz. D. m. alba where the flowers are white instead of rose-purple (this variety is sometimes found with double flowers), and D. m. grandiflora where the flowers are of unusually large size and appear in the autumn. The Spurge Laurel (Daphne laureold) is a member of the same small family — the Thymelczacece — and the only other British representative of that family. In some quarters its nationality is questioned, but an Elizabethan writer says, " It growes abundantly in the woods in most parts of England." It is chiefly in evidence in the beech woods in the chalk of South-east England. It is liked in gardens for its bright ever- green leaves — hence is it popularly "Laurel" — and for its fragrant whitish-green flowers which come in March or even earlier. Daphne cneorum — the Garland Flower — is a small evergreen shrub that carries great masses of pinkish flowers. The whole genus of Daphne, is named, of course, after the nymph Daphne, who, according to Homer, 7 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs was changed into this shrub to escape her too im- portunate lover. Soil and Cultivation. — All the Daphnes like moisture and are partial to lime in the soil. Mezereon and the Spurge Laurel are best produced from seed, but Daphne cneorum by layering. II THE GOLDEN BELL Forsythia Forsythia suspensa . . . Hanging Golden Bell Forsythia viridissima . . Green-leaved Golden Bell B/VRE branches hung with a great multitude of golden bells, the gold gleaming in fitful sun- shine, its vividness undiluted by any green of foliage as the bells swing in pairs in the blustering March wind — that is the picture of this shrub that makes apparent the appositeness of its title " the shrub of the golden bell." And the pretty oriental-sounding name suggests its real home, for it came to us a gift from the Far East. Two species are now found in our gardens, the Hanging Golden Bell (Forsythia sus- pensa], with lissom graceful shoots that trail from wall or arch, and the Green-leaved Golden Bell (Forsythia viridissima), a compact erect shrub whose flowers are somewhat more thickly set upon the branches. The former is the more familiar in our gardens and is the one we knew first, for it was brought to Europe — to Holland indeed — from Japan in the year 9 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs 1832, " a pretty shrub introduced to the gardens of Japan from China, " said the renowned botanist, Dr. von Siebold, who, in his " Flora Japonica," was the first to describe it. (Hence it is sometimes known as Forsythia Sieboldii.) Of the discovery of the second, we have the whole story from the finder. Some time in the " thirties " of last century, Robert Fortune came from the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens to be superintendent of the Horti- cultural Society's hothouses at Chiswick. He was a young man who combined a rare knowledge of flowers with a great love of adventure, so in 1842, just as China was settling down after a war, the Society sent him out to the East to collect rare and new plants for the Gardens, an honour with more than a spice of danger about it. Keenly enthusiastic, he visited many parts of China and was very successful in his finds. On one occasion, sailing on the river Min to the island of Chusan, he was twice attacked by pirates ; his Chinese crew were too cowardly to fight, and he had to drive off the robbers as best as he could unassisted. Arrived at the island, he visited the renowned gardens — the so-called " Grotto Garden " — of a certain Chinese mandarin, and there he first saw growing the plant afterwards known as Forsythia viridissima, the Green- leaved Golden Bell, a very handsome and ornamental bush of rich green colour. He discovered it was 10 The Golden Bell a great favourite with the Chinese and generally found a place in the gardens of the rich, and he secured a specimen for his Society. But later on he came across it growing wild among the mountains of the interior in the province of Chekiang, " where I thought it," he tells us, "even more ornamental in its natural state amongst the hedges than when cultivated in the fairy gardens of the Mandarins." This Forsythia, together with new azaleas, daphnes, honeysuckles, and " a perfect gem " of a chrysanthemum, formed part of the contents of those eighteen glazed chests sent home by Robert Fortune, which arrived in beautiful condition in England at the end of the year 1845. On his return the explorer was made Curator of the Botanic Garden at Chelsea where, with characteristic energy, he at once set great reforms in progress. By the way, the Forsythia was named in honour of a previous Curator of these gardens, William Forsyth, who lived from 1737 to 1804, and who is said to have done more for the general improvement of fruit culture than any other gardener of his time, and, indeed, of most times. The flowers of both species of the Golden Bell are distinctly interesting. They all look precisely alike, but a closer examination shows certain differences, not between species and species but between the flowers ii Beautiful Flowering Shrubs on different shrubs of the same species. In all the bells there is a small calyx of four sepals, in all there is a brilliant corolla cut deeply up into four lobes, which spread somewhat outwards. Honey is concealed within the bell at the top. But now come differences. Sometimes on turning up a flower we find a thick cylindrical yellow head, like a clapper, thrusting itself forward and supported on two tall pillars. This repre- sents two stamens whose heads are touching, and if the flower has been open a short time this head will be coated with pollen, for the anthers open outwards dis- closing their pollen contents. Half-way down, between the pillars, is a greenish object — the stigma — looking like a couple of stout oval wings, set upon a short, thick green column — the style — that itself stands upon the seed-case. This form of flower seems almost always in this country to characterise the shoots of the trailing species, Forsythia suspensa. In other flowers, notably those found on the erect stiffer shrub, Forsythia viridissima, the ovary column is longer than the stamens and projects right beyond them, carrying out into prominence the two broad green wings of the stigma; and somewhat below it, standing one on either side like sentinels, are the two stamens, their heads now kept well apart by the green central pillar. But though one kind of flower-structure predomi- 12 HANGING GOLDEN BELL Forsythia suspensa The Golden Bell nates on the trailing species and another on the erect species, yet really both kinds of Golden Bell are dimorphic, i.e. can carry both kinds of flowers. Sir Joseph Hooker sent for flowers of the F. suspensa direct from Japan and China, and then compared them with his own growing at Kew, and he found that those from Japan had short styles and tall stamens, while those from China and Kew had the reverse form. No doubt in the scheme of Nature, fertilisation, to be effective, should be a cross between the two kinds of flowers, the long-styled being fertilised by pollen from the long stamens and vice versa, and it is a curious fact that in England the shrubs never appear to bear fruit. These flowers are visited by both honey bees and beetles, and in the long-styled flowers, where self- fertilisation is impossible because the pollen is produced' below the style, they no doubt bring about cross- fertilisation, since the stigma presses on the visitor's pollen-dusty body before the insect can reach the flower's own pollen. According to Knuth, the style in F. mridissima is sometimes scarcely longer than the stamens, in which case the flower fertilises itself. The leaves follow upon the fading of the flowers. Those of the species mridissima are long, narrow and of plain outline, folding over one another in the bud ; those of suspensa are broader, and are occasionally lobed. 13 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs P. viridissima is also distinguished by forming a very large number of prominent buds, half of these being reserve buds, only to be called into play if the others fail. Both kinds of Forsythia demand the sun. They come from the "Gardens of the Sun" in the East, and in the shade they are starved of their birthright and resent it. " Forsythia suspensa" says Mr. William Robinson, ''is certainly one of our finest shrubs, and should be found in any garden however small." The Golden Bells belong to the family Oleacece and have for their nearest relatives the privet, the olive, the lilac and the ash. Soil and Cultivation. — The Forsythias demand good loamy soil. They can be easily grown from cuttings ; indeed, where the trailing shoots of the F. suspensa touch the ground, there they will put out rootlets and establish themselves as new plants all round the parent one. They require little attention, and any pruning should be done immediately after the flowering is over. The flowers are produced on the wood of the previous year's growth. Ill THE FLOWERING CURRANTS Ribes Ribes sanguineum . . The Flowering Currant ,, aureum ... The Golden Flowering Currant, or Buffalo Currant, or Missouri Currant Ribes laurifolium . . The Laurel-leaved Currant „ speciosum or R. fuch- The Fuchsia Flowering Currant, or sioides Scarlet-flowered Gooseberry f ~"^HE Common Flowering Currant, R. sanguin- e^lm, responds with peculiar warmth and vivid- -^- ness to the chilly touch of the earliest spring days. Its winter buds, set five on each long turn of a spiral winding round the copper-coloured stalks, swell rapidly, and out between translucent pink-tinged bracts the pleated leaves begin to push. Sometimes the earliest emerging leaf appears as a tiny folded fan upon a broad thick scale, which scale — technically a pair of stipules — is fringed with a few simple hairs, and wraps protectingly as an additional coat round the still younger leaves. Maybe the fact that the thrust- ing apart of the bracts deprives the inner leaves 15 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs somewhat prematurely of their winter coat of bud scales accounts for the provision of this extra shield. The stalk above the stipules quickly grows and carries out the expanding leaf blade. Three leaves usually come out of each bud, and as they delicately unpleat they prove to have five main veins carrying leaf tissue of the freshest, brightest green. But running a racfe with the coming leaves are the coming flowers, for in the centre of the leaf stalk is a tiny pointed pink bud which, when the whole winter bud bursts, swells and breaks up into parts showing a rich crimson lustre. Its stalk grows too, and then it falls over and droops ; its many parts prove each a flower-in-the-making, and soon the tiny pointed bud is transformed into a cascade of ruddy flowers and crimson buds, the buds at the bottom, the open flowers atop. Very shortly, though March may still be roaring like a lion, the whole shrub, with its roseate flower cascades drooping beneath the half-formed fresh green foliage, is a perfect picture of vivid spring beauty, with a colour contrast so strong that, to see it at its best, it should be planted in isolation or in a group with only others of its kind with ample space around, or as a garden hedge. Its charm is intensified by the incense-like fragrance that it exhales — a scent that memory links with swinging censers in some dim ancient aisle. 16 The Flowering Currants No wonder that during the past century the Flowering Currant, though entering Britain as an alien, has found its way into gardens of every rank, and is known by even the veriest garden tyro. The year 1914, indeed, marked the centenary of its first introduction in formal botanical language to English flower lovers, but the introduction was only made from poor dried specimens that could tell nothing of the glorious beauty of the shrub in its native home; it was not until more than a decade later that the first plant blossomed in our land. The discovery of the Flowering Currant has a flavour of historical interest about it. At the end of the eighteenth century, a certain Mr. Archibald Men- zies, a doctor in the Royal Navy, and " one of the most excellent of men and the most liberal of botan- ists," as we are told, visited, on a voyage round the world, the coast of North-west America, and there, in 1787, he saw the Flowering Currant near Nootka Sound. He found it growing in partly shaded places, along the banks of streams and never beyond the sea- breezes, and made a special note of it. On his return to England he had the luck to find an expedition being fitted out by the British Government principally with a view to ascertaining the existence of any navigable communication between the North Pacific and the North Atlantic Oceans, which expedition was 17 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs under the command of the celebrated Captain Van- couver (who gave the name to our colony of Van- couver). And since the plant life of the countries visited was a secondary object of investigation for the expedition, and neither captain nor crew knew any- thing of botany, Menzies was offered the appointment as botanist, and thus returned to the coast he had so lately seen. Among other places the expedition visited Nootka Sound, and when it came home again, in 1795, specimens of the Flowering Currant, which was found all along the coast of California and Oregon, were among the treasures Menzies brought back. He placed the dried shoots, some in the herbarium of the British Museum, and some in that of Sir Joseph Banks, and there — as so often happens in the case of the trophies of scientific expeditions — they were left unheeded and ignored. Nearly twenty years later they were, however, unearthed by Menzies himself, and their formal description, already referred to, written up by him. But still England knew nothing of the living plant, and it was left to that remarkable botanical explorer, David Douglas, of tragic fate, to produce it. In 1822 this plant collector was ranging America in search of new spoil and, struck by the beauty of this shrub, he forwarded seeds of it right across the continent of 18 The Flowering Currants America to the gardens of the Horticultural Society at Chiswick, and there they were planted in an open border in the spring of 1828. Two years later they were flourishing plants flowering in great profuseness — the first of the myriad Flowering Currant bushes to deck our land. Douglas himself regarded his find as " one of the finest and most interesting additions that have been made to our shrubberies for many years," and he believed that, " few plants possess greater claim to our attention as an ornamental shrub than Ribes sanguineum" * (It may be remarked that the memory of both Menzies and Douglas is kept green in the names of certain plants ; the former in the Menziesia, a group of heath-like plants, and the latter in the Douglas Pine.) David Douglas came to an untimely end in the Sandwich Isles by falling into a wild beast snare dug by natives. Unfortunately it caught a beast as well as the explorer, and only the former survived the encounter. The generic name Ribes, which designates, of course, the whole group of Gooseberries and Red and Black Currants, is derived from an Arabian word given by Arabian physicians to certain acid berries, probably those of species of Rheum growing in the East ; later this name was transferred by the herbalists to the * Again and again in his Journal (recently published by the R.H.S.) he ex- presses pleasure. 19 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs familiar Red Currant ; the specific name, sanguineum, was given to the shrub about 1811 by Pursh, an American botanist, because of its brilliant colouring. Prof. Church points out that the red pigment that flushes the blossoms and bracts is not dependent on light for its appearance but is a product of the normal process of food manufacture. If a shoot on which the winter buds are just bursting is placed in water in a warm light room, the dwarfed clusters of flowers that emerge will be white, not red, because they are starved of their usual food supply. Let us next turn to examine minutely the lovely hanging flower clusters. Twenty to thirty blossoms compose each. Each flower has five pink sepals spreading star-wise ; within, standing up as a little tube, are five petals, quite white when the flower first opens, but gaining a rosy hue as time passes. The tube dilates a little at the base to accommodate a large drop of honey. Alternating with the petals, and a little shorter and somewhat concealed by them, are five stamens containing white pollen, while in the very centre of all is a thickish green column standing on a flattened ovary, its base bathed in honey, while its tip forks into a stigma. This stigma, sticky to catch fertilising pollen, is held well above the stamens to prevent any possibility of self-fertilisation, a precaution doubly safeguarded by the fact that the stigma is 20 FLOWERING CURRANT Ribes sangameum The Flowering Currants ready to receive the moment the flower opens, while the anthers below are not quite so alert to discharge their pollen. Hence, in any case, the first chance of fertilisation will come from a slightly older flower. Obviously it is a flower designed to attract insect life — the honey, the brilliant colouring, the massing together of individual flowers into clusters, their con- spicuousness in early days before the foliage develops, all make an irresistible bid for attention, and many bees and moths visit it. A little coal-black bee — the size of a small humble-bee — with a long proboscis and shaggy hind legs that can carry off plenty of pollen, is a very assiduous visitor on sunny April days, and can often be watched in eager quest rummaging in the more newly-opened flowers. This particular bee is of the female sex and by name Anthophora pilipes. Hive bees, particularly in cold weather, are more apt to bore through the flower walls than to reach the honey by legitimate means. Each flower cluster will hang gaily on the shrub for four or five weeks, though each individual flower has only a life of from five to ten days. A score of flowers may be at their zenith together and competing for visitors, but usually only some half a dozen are really functioning. If no insects visit, then no fruit is formed. If, how- ever, each flower is artificially fertilised by its own pollen then, though fruit " sets," it rarely develops to maturity. 21 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs Flowering finishes in the early part of May, and the flush fades from the shrub, while the new foliage springs to its full development. Each little receptacle on which a flower is set becomes a tiny water reservoir for the service of the developing fruit. When the season is very dry, much of the fruit falls. In August the berries are ripe, but out of each cluster of twenty to thirty flowers less than one-third give rise to fruit. Each berry is blue-black, and is coated with wax, which gives it a beautiful " bloom." It contains many seeds. But in spite of the fact that its relatives produce berries so delectable as the red and black currants, this shrub throws all its desirableness into its flowers, and its fruits, to quote David Douglas, are " of so musky and unpleasant a flavour that the berries continue to hang on the bushes throughout the winter, even the birds refusing to make them a part of their food." This "musky and unpleasant flavour" we may correlate with the incense-like fragrance of the shrub. For this fragrance, unlike that of many plants, has no reference to insects, but is the plant's method of warning off browsing animals, a sign manual of an oil contained in myriads of little glands over the whole of its surface — branches, leaves, flowers — which oil is utterly distasteful to the palate of those that browse. And thus does the Flowering Currant defend itself from enemies. 22 The Flowering Currants This shrub may grow to a height of ten feet. It is remarkable for the number of varieties under which it is known. Thus in one, perhaps the finest of all — R. s. splendens — there are large clusters of the deepest, richest crimson; in R. s. atrorubens, though the colour is almost as deep, yet the effect is lightened by each flower having a white centre ; while in R. s. carneum we have washed-out looking clusters of pale pink, though an even paler hue distinguishes the blossom of R. s. albidum, and so on. In the Buffalo or Missouri Currant (R. aureum), the flower clusters are a golden-yellow instead of red. In the variety R. a. prcecox they are extra large, and the petals are red-tipped and the sepals turned right back. It flowers at the same time as the ordinary red species, and is a most effective shrub. It is a native of the United States, and was first seen in England in 1812, though until lately it has not been greatly cul- tivated. The Fuchsia Flowering Currant, R. speciosum (sometimes and perhaps better known as R. fuchsioides\ is particularly interesting because its flowers, which hang from the inner side of the branches in twos and threes (and not in dense clusters), are curiously like miniature fuchsia blossoms. There is a red tube composed of sepals and petals, and hanging far beyond it are the stamens with long red filaments and purple 23 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs anthers. The parts of the flower are in fours instead of in fives, as in the other Flowering Currants. Fruit is very rarely borne in this country. The leaves are like those of the gooseberry, hence a popular name — the Scarlet-Flowered Gooseberry. The plant is not as often found as it might be, for it makes a most excellent and interesting wall shrub and very early comes into leaf. It was discovered by Archibald Menzies at the same time as the ordinary Flowering Currant, but was not known in England until Dr. Collie brought it from Monterey in 1828. All these Ribes are armed with spines. A new Ribes, R. laiirifoliiim, was introduced some ten years ago (1908) by Mr. Wilson from North China, where, however, it is rarely found wild. Its flowers lack any reds and golds and are merely a pale greenish colour, but at Aldenham a shrub that has been in the open for the past five or six years is very flourishing and most attractive in the earliest spring days when its long yellow-green clusters droop among the young, fresh foliage. This shrub is further characterised by being unisexual, the male flowers being borne on one shrub and the female on another. Soil and Cultivation. — The Flowering Currants are easy to cultivate in ordinary garden soil. They are propagated by cuttings. 24 IV THE BARBERRIES Berberis aquifolium . , Mahonia, Oregon Grape „ Darwinii . . . Darwinian Barberry „ stenophylla (hybrid) . = B. Darwinii x B. empetrifolia „ japonica . . . Japanese Barberry „ Thunbergii . . Thunberg's Barberry „ vulgaris . . . Common Barberry f ""^HERE are endless species of Barberries, but only three are at all generally found in our -**- British gardens, and these three are the Mahonia (Berberis aqMifolium), whose gay, lemon- coloured clusters of small flowers and compound, semi- prickly leaves are noticeable on every hand in the spring-time ; the Darwinian Barberry (B. Darwinii), the most beautiful of all Barberries, with stems thickly studded with orange-red flowers and small dark leaves; and the Common Barberry, whose place is usually in some old-fashioned garden redolent of the past. A fourth species, Thunberg's Barberry (B. Thunbergii\ is now making its way into popularity on account of the vivid crimsons of its autumn foliage; while a fifth, the Japanese Mahonia, built on quaint unusual lines, only 25 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs needs to be better known to make it increasingly welcome. The Common Barberry is, of course, the original one of our gardens, and it was of this plant that the learned Dr. Culpepper wrote in the reign of Charles I, " Mars owns this shrub and presents it to the use of my countrymen to purge their bodies of choler." It is usually said that it is really a true native of Great Britain, and Gerard certainly declares in 1597 that " the Barberry bush growes of it selfe in untoiled places and desart grounds, in woods and the borders of fields " ; but, on the other hand, we know that it was one of those shrubs definitely planted by our ancestors. "The barberry, respis and gooseberry, too, Looke now to be planted as other things doo," runs a gardening rhyme of four centuries ago, and Gerard himself mentions the planting of it in gar- dens. Then it was cultivated with a utilitarian object, for the tender leaves with their acid juices were largely used in "sallets," or "stamped" and made into a green sauce which, we are told, "doth coole hot stomacks and procureth appetite." The scarlet, bead-like fruits, too, were transformed into a conserve that, in those days of less variety in these matters, was much esteemed, and the liking for which still lingers in certain districts. 'We consider our barberries as not the least impor- 26 The Barberries tant of our fruit crops. We preserve them, some in bunches, some picked like currants. We crystallise them in sugar and they become delicious bonbons. We steep them in salt and water and they keep as a gay garnish for cold meat or game." * As an ornamental shrub it has beauty both in flower and in fruit. Rather tall, its branches carry the pale green, oval leaves arranged in small groups. Hidden under each group are three sharp spines — metamorphosed leaves — which guard the foliage from unlawful designs upon it. Since the spurs are in trinities the shrub was sometimes known as "the Holy Thorn," and it is one of those that tradition credits with having formed part of the Crown of Thorns. The flowers are small and pale yellow and hang in clusters from the axils of the leaf tufts. The fruits, each containing a single seed, are like long thin pieces of coral, hence the shrub's old name of " Piprage" or " Pipe-ridge," or "Pepperidge Tree," all of which stand for " redpip." The Mahonia (B. aquifolium) of everyone's garden also carries yellow flowers set in racemes, or clusters, but here they are carried erect at the end of the branches. It is a plant hailing from the western coast of North America, and was found by David Douglas in 1825 at Fort Vancouver while he was living there in a hut made of bark, and sleeping in the open. * Bright, in "A Lancashire Garden," 1874 27 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs [This latter feat he records as an act of bravery for, as he truly remarks, " In England people shudder at the idea of people sleeping with their windows open," and at first he himself looked on the habit " with a sort of dread ! " ] He collected the seeds and sent them back to England. This shrub was justly looked upon by him as one of his greatest " finds," and indeed few plants have been more valuable additions to our gardens than this. It will grow anywhere, even under the shade of trees, and is most hardy. Its shining evergreen foliage is a joy all the year round with its varying tints of green, purple and red. The leaves are cut up into two, three or four pairs of leaflets with a terminal leaflet. Their margins are wavy and set with tender spines. In autumn black berries with a lovely purple bloom stand out as a new beauty among the ruddy-tinging foliage. It is rather a low-growing shrub, usually not more than two or three feet high. When one turns to a group of the Darwinian Barberries (B. Darwinii) in the zenith of their glory in late April and early May and notes their rich orange flowers, red-touched, closely clustered along the branches, the massing of the blossoms redeeming their small size from insignificance, and the vivid hue enhanced by the black-green foliage, one sees a spec- tacle of shrub display that cannot easily be forgotten. 28 MAHONIA (Oregon Grape) Berberis Aquifolium The Barberries Fitting indeed is this shrub as a remembrance of the great scientist whose name it bears. A Chilian plant, it was first brought to the notice of Englishmen by Charles Darwin, who found it on his celebrated voyage round the world on the Beagle, 1831-1836. But its entrance into our gardens dates from a more recent year, and is owed to a Cornishman, William Lobb, who was one of Messrs. Veitch's most successful plant collectors. Sent out by this firm in search of new and rare flowers to the then almost unknown regions of Chile, his first journey in 1840 had, as a prime result, the introduction here of the well-known Arau- caria, the " Monkey Puzzler " ; and his second journey, five years later, gave, as chief treasure, the Darwinian Barberry, which he found growing profusely in Chiloe, an island off the south coast of Chile. " If Messrs. Veitch had done nothing else towards beautifying our gardens, the introduction to this single species would be enough to earn the gratitude of the whole gar- dening world, in England at any rate,"* was the welcome given to the new shrub. The plant has proved thoroughly hardy here and will grow in almost any garden soil. Its evergreen leaves are about an inch in length, and are of curious, often triangular shape, ending in a sharp, almost prickly point, below which are a pair of shoulders, * Gardener's Chronicle. 29 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs each also with a stiffened point. Sometimes, half-way down the margin, is yet another pair of sharpened spurs. The leaves are grouped together in threes, and set thickly upon the branches. From each group hangs a little brilliant flower cluster, whose vivid scheme of colouring extends even to tinging the flower-stalks with a rich red. The whole bell-shaped flower, too, is one mass of colour undiluted by green. Its structure (as apart from colouring) is that common to all Barberries, and the following description also applies to the two species already mentioned. The eight or nine distinct sepals, which vary in size, as well as the six separate petals, are a brilliant orange, with a suggestion of red on the outermost sepals' backs. The petals are markedly con- cave, and on the inner side of every one are two yellow cushions, which contain abundant honey. When we come to the six stamens we come to the part of greatest interest in the whole plant, for they are most remarkable, sensitive organs, which can " feel " a touch and respond to it with a quick movement. Each has a particularly interesting structure. Its yellow filament is carried up between the two pollen cases, separating them. A third of the way down are two little pro- jections, like arm stumps. The pollen cases are closed by oval flaps on their outer side, which open like trap-doors when the pollen is mature and the weather 30 The Barberries is fine, but close when the weather is bad. This is a very unusual way for a pollen case to open, and it can easily be seen by the aid of a hand lens. The six stamens are arranged round a seed-case containing many tiny ovules, which ovary supports a reddish stigma disc upon a thick column. The stamens lean backwards so that they are almost hidden in the petals' hollows, but if one takes a pin and just touches one somewhere on the inner side near the base of the filament, that stamen will promptly raise itself and stand upright. If one lays the pin across several together, they will act in unison and close in round the style and stigma. (N.B. a flower must not be too old or this pretty little experiment may fail.) So when insects such as flies, bettles, bees and wasps come searching for the honey that overflows from the yellow nectaries and lies round the base of the stamen filaments, they are bound to touch with foreleg or proboscis the sensitive surface, upon which the stamen promptly raises itself out of its dry security in the petal concavity, and deposits its pollen upon the unsuspecting stimulator. As the stamen moves up- wards the insect moves towards the stigma, and hence its head comes between the stigma and pollen and effectually keeps them apart. Therefore the flower does not fertilise itself, in spite of the fact that in all the Barberries the stigma is mature and in a receptive 31 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs condition even before the stamen heads open their trap- door valves. What precisely is the mechanism of these sensitive and moving stamens has been a matter for much dis- cussion. The microscope shows that at the sensitive point there is a layer of cells with pits in their walls, so that there can be a rapid interchange of water be- tween them. Thin-walled cells lie over this layer. Normally the contents of the cells are in a thick band on the back wall. Touch the sensitive spot, and this band becomes lax and curves, pulling in the side walls and causing pressure on the outer wall which arches. Therefore all the cells of the layer become shorter and thicker together, and the filament, which is leaning out- wards, is sharply pulled up. Hence the movement responding to the touch. A hybrid — B. stenophylla — a cross between the Darwinian Barberry and a little-known dwarf Chilian Barberry — B. empetrifolia — is a very desirable shrub. It arose in a nursery garden near Sheffield, in 1860, and inasmuch as it is of more graceful habit than its Darwinian parent, it is sometimes claimed to be " the most beautiful and useful of all the barberries." Its long slender sprays are veritable arches of golden bloom. The leaves are small and very dark green above, white below. Its fruit is a purple berry with a whitish bloom upon it, but the seeds rarely come true. 32 DARWINIAN BARBERRY Berberis Darivmti The Barberries Thunberg's Barberry (Berberis Thunbergii\ with its crowded tufts of small leaves and its solitary yellow flowers hanging singly, has no special beauty in the spring-time. Its glory comes with the dying year when, under the pale November sunshine, it transforms into a shrub of flame, a veritable burning bush, punctuated by brilliant scarlet lines — the long narrow fruit. The consummation of the season's life of this shrub expresses itself in the bright-hued fruit, but the decay and disso- lution of its leaves is an end of no less brilliancy, so vivid are their crimsons, scarlets and reds. A plant from the far East, it was noted by Thun- berg at the end of the eighteenth century, but it was not brought into England until the sixties. For touches of gaiety in autumn days no better plant could be placed in any garden. Like the Common Barberry it is a deciduous plant. The Japanese Mahonia (B. japonicd) is a very striking evergreen shrub. Its leaves are a large and coarse replica of those of the Mahonia, as many as thirteen leaflets sometimes making up a leaf. Their margins are deeply toothed and very spiny. The flowers, which appear in March, are arranged on a number of spikes, some six or seven inches long, which spikes are gathered into clusters at the tips of the branches. They are characterised by a very sweet fragrance. The fruit is an elongated purple berry. 33 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs This shrub should be given some shelter and a specially sunny outlook. The Barberry belongs to the small and unimportant family Berberidacece. It is said that the name Barberry is a corruption of " Amyrberis," by which term the Arabian physicians of the twelfth century knew the Common Barberry. Soil and Cultivation. — Barberries, while preferring a warm loam, grow readily in most soil. They are readily propagated from seed ; cuttings of ripened wood must be raised in a cold frame. These shrubs also lend themselves to division. 34 V THE QUINCES Cydonia vulgaris . . The Common Quince „ japonica . . " Japonica," the Japanese Quince „ sinensis . . . Chinese Quince „ cathayensis „ Maulei . . . Maule's Quince A QUINCE, surely the most beautiful of all flowering shrubs, every long green curving branch starred with large single delicate pink and white blossoms. Bear with me if I do not describe it adequately; for in truth, I think the poet himself could not do so. If I spoke of it as a shower or rather a fountain of bloom, a fountain whose delicate dome curves and falls, but fades and fails not, should I be exaggerating or ... pressing the power of language too far and striving to make words serve more than their large but withal limited purpose?" It was the Common Quince in "Veronica's Garden" that called forth this outburst of enthusiasm on the part of the Poet Laureate, and it was not misplaced, though recognition of the beauty of Quinces in general seems for the most part strangely limited to that of 35 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs the Japanese Quince, the " Japonica " of almost every garden from cottage to castle. In the utilitarian eyes of our ancestors the Common Quince (Cydonia vulgaris), though greatly appreciated, owed the appreciation to its fruits, and it is probable that the very presence of the Quince in our land is a legacy from the occupation of Britain by quince-loving Romans a thousand years ago. Which, indeed, is the native land of the Quince is a fact unknown to history, though the name " Cydonia " reminds us that it was first brought to Greece from Cydon in Crete. Though almost certainly not indigenous to Britain, it seems always to have been found here since civilisation began, and a sixteenth century writer tells us that, in addition to being an orchard tree, it was " planted oftentimes in Hedges and Fences belonging to Gardens and Vineyards " — a practice now lost. In a favourable situation it tends to be a small tree rather than a shrub, though all writers comment on its tendency to a shrub-like habit. The leaves are rather like apple leaves, of simple outline, smooth above, whitish below. The flowers are larger than apple flowers, though on the same plan — both Quince and apple being members of the Rosacece family — and they apppear, usually solitary, on second-year shoots about May, the opening of the leaf buds preceding that of the flower buds. Each flower has five large 36 JAPONICA (Japanese Quince) Cydonia japonic* The Quinces recurved sepals, five pink and white beautiful petals, twenty stamens of three different lengths, and a number of styles, whose height is less than that of the shortest stamens. Hence their receptive tips — the stigmas — usually get fertilised by the pollen of the adjacent anthers. However, as the flower opens and exposes these stigmas a trifle before the stamens shed their pollen, there is a chance of cross-fertilisation being effected by the many hive and humble-bees that fly from flower to flower. The fruits, ripe in October, are pear-shaped (though there is also an apple-like variety) and the size of largish pears. They are coated with a waxy film and are of a beautiful golden colour. (Were they the Golden Apples of Hesperides ? ) They are charac- terised by a strong odour which Gerard declared to be " hurtful 1 to the head." When young they are coated with white "cotton" or down, which down the herbal- ists used to boil and apply to plague sores. Further, since, as Culpepper says, "Old Saturn owns the tree/' this woolly coat " laid as a plaister, made up with wax brings hair to them that are bald and keeps it from falling if it be ready to shed." " Marmelade," a word derived from Marmello, the Spanish name of the Quince, was originally the preserve, or "Cotiniate," made from Quinces. To every pound of " faire " Quince add a pound of sugar and a pint of water, D 37 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs strain and boil again till stiff, then " as it cooleth p thereto a little Rose water and a few grains of Mu mingled together, which will give a goodly taste to t Cotiniat. This is the way to make Marmelade," Sc Gerard in Queen Elizabeth's day. The gay Japanese Quince, " Japonica," has or been known about a century. Sir Joseph Banks, t botanist, found it in Japan in 1796 when he \\ making a voyage round the world with the renown Captain Cook, and it was first figured in the Botanu Magazine of 1803. The Japanese name for it Alsuma Kaido, or Bukd. Most common as a creef " which must have been designed by the Creator's s to wander across a mullioned window or to cling abc a Jacobean door," * it is perhaps even more attracti a shrub set in isolation on a lawn in free developme: Its gaiety begins in the very dead of the year — alwa supposing that it is in a sunny, moderately shelter spot — for in January its buds are just beginning unfold into rose-scarlet blossoms, whose brilliancy enhanced by a close ring of half a hundred yell< stamens. Since the leaves are not yet putting in appearance, late February days often see a blaze colour visible from afar, all the more attractive in tl there is no background of green to dilute the viv ness. This brilliant blossoming in early spring da] * Hubert Bland, " With the Eyes of a Man." 38 The Quinces and the fact that flowering continues freely until June, while odd flowers may be found throughout the whole year, constitutes one of the chief attractions of the shrub. The flowers appear in small clusters of two to eight. The end of each flower stalk is a miniature crater, round the edge of which are set five sepals and (alternating) five petals. On the crater's inner slopes are set five rings of ten stamens apiece whose heads are free to nod. These stamens offer an abundance of pollen to eager pollen-collecting bees and flies, the outer ring commencing first to discharge their contents and the other rings following in due succession. On the base of the " crater " is the seed-case with five locules, a number of seeds being in each locule. Five long columns — the styles — rise from it; each carries two lateral lobes — stigmas — whose function it is to catch the fertilising pollen. A circular reddish disc, forming almost a roof to the ovary, projects from the crater's sides just below the stamens, and pours out honey lavishly into the crater; it is the nectar gland of the flower. But this honey lies too deep for hive bees to reach it ; their proboscides are only some 6 mm. long, while the honey is at double that depth, so they have to content themselves with pollen, the secondary object of their desire. The most successful visitor to the 39 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs Japanese Quince is the bee Anthophora pilipes, and this may often be seen poising on the cluster of styles and guiding its fine long proboscis along one of them to the nectary, which it can easily reach. The stigmas are mature a little before the stamens, and either the pollen-seeking hive bees or the nectar- sucking Anthophora pilipes usually effect cross-fertilisa- tion, or even self-fertilisation as the flower grows older and stamens and styles are functioning together. Each little group of flowers — or " infloresence " — lasts three to four weeks, an individual flower ten days to a fortnight. Though most of the flowers are fertilised in this country, not all the fruit ripens. This is especially the case if the water supply is at all scanty. An apple- like fruit, it is of full size when about two inches in diameter in September, and by October, when it falls, is fragrant, waxy-coated and a golden-yellow, but inedible, though sometimes made into a not very successful preserve. A number of ovoid seeds are embedded in the hard flesh. As all the fruits neces- sarily fall just below the tree, it is suggested that pigs might perhaps be Nature's agents intended to take the fruit from the ground and thus disperse the seeds. Many beautiful varieties of the Japanese Quince are known, their chief distinction lying in the colour 40 The Quinces of their flowers ; thus alba has white flowers, Candida cream, rosea pink flowers, cardinalis rich crimson, and gardenalis large, vivid red flowers. The common form is usually differentiated as Cydonia japonica camellcefolia. The Chinese Quince (Cydonia sinensis) is similar but inferior to the Japanese Quince. Its blossoms are rose-red, while its foliage is bronze coloured in the spring. Maule's Quince Cydonia (or Pyrus) Maulei, is a particularly desirable shrub. It is not so large as the Japanese Quince, with more slender branches which tend to spread, and smaller leaves, but it atones for this by an absolute plethora of blossoms. Its young twigs will be a solid mass of brilliant scarlet flowers about April, to be followed in the autumn by crowds of almost as brilliant orange-coloured fruits the size of small apples. These fruits have a spicy fragrance as well as great beauty, a beauty that persists, too, for they cling long to the branches ; a delicious preserve can be made from them. There is an element of tragedy about the shrub, however. . It was introduced into England from Japan, somewhere in the seventies, by a Mr. Maule, of Bristol, who was so struck by the possibilities of the shrub both in flower and particularly in fruit, that he laid out many acres of his land for its cultivation. 41 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs Unhappily the venture was not a success, and the worry of it all is said to have hastened his death. The shrub is quite hardy and it is sometimes employed to form excellent hedges on account of a spininess about its branches. It is known in a number of varieties of marked distinctiveness. Thus C. m. alba has longer leaves and tiny yellow-white flowers, while C. m. superba has particularly large rich- red flowers, and is a most desirable shrub. Soil and Cultivation. — The Quinces will thrive in most soils, but loam is preferable, and to be seen at their best they should have plenty of sun. They are propagated either by seeds or cuttings. 42 VI ROSEMARY Rosmarinus officinalis STIFF stems rising up straightly like so many towers, clothed with leaves so narrow as to be almost needle-like, showing swift colour contrasts of dark green and grey, stems and leaves that persist unchanged, season in, season out, winter as well as summer ; small flowers that add an unobtrusive tinge of purple to the upper part of the branches in spring- time and autumn — that is the Rosemary. But not the whole Rosemary, nor yet even the most striking part of it ; this honour is reserved for the fragrant and refreshing scent so indissolubly associated with the plant that one cannot think of it apart from its odour. It is a fact well established by science to-day that scent in any form more readily awakens an association of ideas than any other stimulant of sensation, that it is pre-eminently the vehicle of memory : " sweet scents Are the swift vehicles of still sweeter thoughts, And nurse and mellow the dull memory That would let drop without them her best stores." (Savage Landor.} 43 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs And so " Rosemary that's for remembrance/' as sad Ophelia said, and hence, too, the Rosemary is above all others the shrub of sentiment. Obviously it cannot rank among the shrubs of special beauty, though the low tones of its grey-green foliage and dull purple flowers have a quaint attractiveness, but even in these prosaic days a place will be found for it in many a garden when gayer shrubs are crowded out. " I plant Rosemary all over the garden, so pleasant is it to know that every few steps one may draw the kindly branchlets through one's hand and have the enjoyment of their incomparable incense, and I grow it against walls so that the sun may draw at its in- exhaustible sweetness to greet me as I pass/' * In olden days, when sentiment seemed more to the fore, the " Gloriouse Rosemaryne," was universally grown. " Being in every woman's garden/' says Parkinson about the middle of the seventeenth century, in his "Earthly Paradise," "it were sufficient but to name it as an ornament among other sweet herbs and flowers in our gardens " ; while Shenstone "trim Rosernarine that whilom crowned The daintiest garden of the proudest peer." In earlier days still Sir Thomas More wrote, " As for Rosernarine I lett it run all over my garden wall, not onlie because my bees love it, but because 'tis the herb * "Home and Garden." By G. Jekyll. 44 Rosemary sacred to remembrance and therefore to friendship, whence a sprig of it hath a dumb language that maketh it the chosen emblem at our funeral wakes and in our buriall grounds." Very early was this association formed with death — a very natural and inevitable association for the herb of remembrance — and over and over again we find references to the "Dreary Rosemarye That always mourns the dead." (Hood.} and the poet Gay describes the funeral of a maiden where "To show their love the neighbours far and near Followed with wishful look the damsel's bier. Sprigg'd Rosemary the lads and lasses bore, While dismally the parson walked before ; Upon her grave the Rosemary they threw, The daisy, butter-flower and endive blue." Even to this day in certain parts of the country and on certain occasions sprigs of Rosemary are carried by the mourners to the graveside and thrown into the grave upon the coffin. It was also customary to place Rosemary upon the corpse, so Friar Laurence by the dead Juliet counsels "Dry up your tears and stick your Rosemary On this fair corse and, as the custom is, In all her best array bear her to church," and a curious superstition existed that the sprig of Rosemary left in the hand of the dead would grow 45 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs and eventually cover the body. There was an old belief, too, that its aroma preserved the dead, hence the idea of immortality was linked up with this shrub. But it was not only at funerals that the Rosemary entered into relation with man's affairs ; at weddings the " herb of remembrance " had a place, too, as Herrick tells us in Queen Elizabeth's days, "The Rosemarie trail Grows for two ends, it matters not at all, Be 't for my Bridall or my Buriall." And a very old poem addressing a bride tells how, "Young men and maids do ready stand With sweet Rosemary irj, their hand A perfect token of your virgin life. To wait upon you they intend Unto the church to make an end, And God make thee a joyfull wedded wife."* It is on record that the wedding coronal of Anne of Cleves had sprigs of Rosemary in it. Again, the Rosemary always found a place in Christmas decorations, centuries back, because of the belief that the Virgin Mary placed the Infant Jesus upon branches of the fragrant Rosemary. And so in an Elizabethan Christmas carol we have, "The boar's head in hand bring I With garland gay and Rosemary." and Herrick recounting the dismantling of Christmas * " The Bride's Good Morrow." The Roxburgh Ballads. 46 Rosemary decorations among the ceremonies due on Candlemas Eve, says, " Down with the Rosemary and Bayes ; Down with the Mistletoe. Instead of Holly now upraise The greener Box (for show)." Although the Rosemary has been bound up in such intimate fashion with English life for many centuries it is not a native plant, but has come to us from South Europe, where it abounds in any locality no matter how dry or exposed. For it is what is known as a xerophyllous plant — a plant specially adapted to an environment of drought. Witness the white hairs which form such a thick coat over the tender skin and protect it from the drying, shrivelling effect of hot sun or cutting winds, and prevent undue transpiration of moisture from the tissues beneath. Witness, too, the curious and interesting structure of the leaves. When one comes to analyse it one finds that their needle shape is due to the fact that the edges of each leaf are turned back sharply so that almost the whole of the back of the leaf, all but a narrow strip, is covered by them. Thus the leaf exposes the minimum amount of surface possible, and even this back strip is covered by a white felting of hairs. It is this light felting in contradistinction to the dark face of the leaf, that gives the foliage the colour contrast characteristic of the Rosemary. Again the leaves are all set on the stem 47 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs steeply inclined upwards, and this with a very wise purpose. When the dry winds blow through the shrub they strike upon the carefully protected backs of the leaves and press their faces on to the stem, so that the more tender portion of each leaf is immediately protected, and the full force of the breeze is received without injury by the guarded back. The Rosemary belongs to the family known as the Labiatce, and has for its relatives many other sweet- scented herbs, such as the lavender, marjoram, thyme, sweet basil, mint and the pogostemon, from which the famous patchouli scent is extracted. Indeed, scent is a leading characteristic of a large section of this family, even though it may take the form of a strong and somewhat unpleasant aroma, as for instance, in the catmint (Nepetd) and the hedge stachys. The pale lavender-coloured flowers are in clusters of two and three at the end of the shoots. The corolla of each is irregular, yawning and two-lipped, and with two narrow side petals, outstretched like arms. Its base is held in a hoary green calyx, which is also two- lipped, three sepals being united at top and two partly below. In the corolla the top lip has two long ears, showing that it is really composed of two petals, while the lower lip curves down and then up, forming a long deep trough along which run two dark purple lines. The lower part of the corolla is a narrow tube. 48 ROSEMARY Rosmarinus offtctnalfs Rosemary There are only two stamens (instead of the four usually found in this family), and these stand on short filaments in the throat of the tube. At the base are four nutlets, like four little eggs, and from the centre of the four rises a long dark purple column which runs along under the upper lip and out a considerable distance beyond it, forking into unequal parts at the end. The stamens are mature before the style, hence the bees (whose affection for the flowers Bacon noted) and the wasps (who also love it) visiting the younger flowers carry off pollen with them. On their visiting an older flower they strike upon the now receptive stigma and leave at least some of the pollen grains thereon. Honey drawn by the bees from Rosemary flowers is supposed to be of particularly good flavour. The flowers begin to appear very early in the year, and blossom is at its zenith about the end of April. The old superstition was that Rosemary blossomed on the day of the Passion of Christ. Above the flowering part of the shoot, the new shoots of the current year are flowerless. As the flowers are set close down among the leaves the shrub makes no great show, nor is it planted with any view to floral effect. Scent, foliage and sentiment are the foundation of its popularity. Since it is evergreen [and adaptable, Rosemary makes an admirable hedge, and no better one could be found for a garden where those that walk therein are 49 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs given to meditation and reflection. Planted along some narrow path the gentle brushing against the leaves as one passes to and fro calls forth the Rosemary's memory-haunting aroma and forms a sub- conscious background for thought. And, because ever- green, the Rosemary makes its special appeal all the year round. So Perdita, welcoming the pseudo- shepherds, Polixenes and Camillo, gave them gifts of welcome of Rosemary and rue — " Reverend Sirs, For you there's rosemary and rue ; these keep Seeming and savour all the winter long : Grace and remembrance be to you both, And welcome to our shearing." The scent of the Rosemary is, of course, due to a certain volatile oil that permeates its tissues, particu- larly those of the younger growing parts and, owing to the presence of this oil, the shrub in olden days had a high medicinal reputation and was largely grown in the gardens of the religious orders, whose care was the sick. A fourteenth century poet refers to it — " This herb is callet Rosemaryne Of vertu that is gode and fyne," while Gerard, who cultivated it in his garden in 1596, tells us that "The oile of Rosemary chemically drawne comforteth the cold, weake and feeble braine, in most wonderful manner"; and also that "The flowers made 50 Rosemary up into plates with sugar, after the manner of Sugar Roses, and eaten, comfort the heart and make it merry, quicken the spirits, and make them more lively." Culpepper's Herbal, published about half a century later than Gerard's, gives high praise to this plant. "It is an herb of great use with us in these days as any whatsoever, not only for physical as for civil purposes," and then he sets forth a score of diseases or "griefs" for which it is "a sovereign help." Indeed, this might be expected since, as he asserts, " The sun claims privilege in it and it is under the celestial Ram." Not only was the oil prescribed by him but also the flowers to be eaten, fasting every morning, with bread and salt, and the dried leaves to be shredded and smoked as tobacco, or made into ointments, and the branches to be steeped in wine as decoctions. But by degrees 'it waned from favour, and in a Herbal of the early days of the nineteenth century it is referred to "as having obtained a celebrity which it little merits." However, a perfume made by distilling two pounds of Rosemary flowers with four pounds of rectified wine, was then popular and went by the name of "Queen of Hungary's Water," because a certain Queen of Hungary was said to have been cured of some fell disease by drinking it. Though Oil of Rosemary still finds a place in the British Pharmacopoeia among other volatile flavouring oils, it is rarely used, being somewhat of 51 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs an irritant, and it has now no other function assigned to it, Finally, reference must be made to an old proverb that asserts that " Rosemary only grows where the mistress t is master," and perhaps Parkinson was having a sly hit when he spoke of it as being in "every woman's garden." A variety of the Rosemary known as the Golden- leaved Rosemary (R. folius aureis), with yellow-streaked leaves, is sometimes met with, but it is rather tender and has no advantage over the common form. Soil and Cultivation.— Rosemary will grow almost anywhere, in any garden soil that is not too heavy, but it should be planted where it gets a certain measure of sunshine. It is easily propagated by cuttings struck in a cold frame. VII THE GORSE Ulex Europceus .... Gorse, Furze, Whin „ „ / var. flore plena Double Gorse NOTHING is more entrancing in Nature's garden than a Gorse common ablaze with the massed brilliancy of its flowers in late April and in the merry month of May. For there a sheet of pure gold makes a revel of colour, while the most delicious, the most spring-like of scents surges up on every breeze, wave upon wave, to bathe one in frag- rance. No wonder, indeed, that when the eyes of the great Linnaeus first fell on a Gorse common in full flower he, a native of a gorseless land, stood in wonder, then knelt in gratitude to the Almighty who had permitted him to see such a vision of beauty. So strong is the appeal that Gorse makes to the senses, so overwhelming the delight that lies in it, that it is nothing short of amazing that as a garden shrub it is so rare. Of course in Nature the magnifi- cence of the general effect is largely obtained from viewing at a distance the massing of brilliant flower E 53 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs colour over a large area, and naturally in a garden, where space is circumscribed, this effect cannot be obtained, but the disability is largely overcome if the Double Gorse be planted instead of the ordinary wild form. The Double Gorse — Ulex Europceus, var. flore pleno — is a variety that appeared suddenly in the gar- den of Mr. John Miller, a well-known nurseryman at Bristol, about the year 1828, and its characteristic is that its flowers are " double " ; therefore each, indi- vidually, represents an enhanced spot of brilliancy. So an irregular clump of some large spreading shrub, several yards in diameter, may stand for the concen- trated essence of a whole Gorse common, and its flare of colour will dominate the whole situation. It is sometimes objected that the Double Gorse is short-lived — a few years being its limit — and that considerable attention is required in the way of cutting back the branches every three or four years and then relayering if one is to keep the patch in full vigour. But a Double Gorse, well known to the writer, has lived its own uninterfered-with existence in a Cambridge garden for over twenty years, and still appears in the zenith of its day. Gorse, however, has its definite likes and dislikes, even in the wild state, and though so common in this country and in the west of Europe generally, it is un- 54 known elsewhere with the exception of a corner of North-west Africa. Linnaeus attempted to introduce it to his native land of Sweden when he returned, but his efforts met with no success, and Scandinavia, to- gether with the larger part of Europe and the whole of the rest of the world, have no knowledge of it in a wild state. One of the chief merits of the Double Gorse as a garden shrub is the long period of its flowering. In fact, in this respect it is second to none. Quite early in the spring it begins to put out touches of gold — " Grey skies without a rift of blue To-day above the trees ; All dun and drear the woodland's hue, Swept by the chilling breeze. "Only the yellow gorse so bold Turns every bush to molten gold, And roofs the roughest brier brake With gleaming shingles, flake on flake, That fire the dim March world around. Beauty's triumphant o'er bare ground ! Dull skies and hedgerows empty yet, 'Neath winds the barren boughs that fret ; But yellow gorse flames everywhere, Making the bleakest prospect fair."* But mid-April is the time when the garden Gorse begins really to appear a whole patch of blazing colour; while behind the first crop of flowers an * " The Yellow Gorse." Edith Dart. 55 Beautiful Flowering Shrubs infinite number of buds, big and little, bespeak an endless stream of successors. All May and a large part of June the glory continues — " a feast for sore eyes " — and even when its zenith is past it still con- tinues to put forth a very respectable, if gradually diminishing, floral show for another two months, and is speckled with odd blossoms right into the autumn. "When Gorse is out of flower, kissing is out of fashion " is as true of the garden Gorse as of the wild Gorse, while the actual period of its zenith is longer. In the Double Gorse the flower loses something of the butterfly-type of the wild form. In the latter there are two yellow-brown sepals and five petals, one, " the standard," being large and upstanding ; two smaller ones are wings, one at each side, while two yet smaller are united to form the keel. The wings and keel interlock by ingenious hooks at the base of each, readily to be seen on dissecting a blossom. Inside the petals ten stamens, their heads all separate, have their filaments united into a tube and lie in the keel, and the ripe pollen falls out of them and collects in its tip. In the centre of their filament tube is the long slender seed-pod covered with white hairs and carrying a hooked column which also runs up to the end of the keel. In the course of nature a bee straddles the keel, whose interlocking with the wings promptly gives way, so down it goes, and up spring the 56 DOUBLE GORSE Ulex ettropxus :