THE FRAGRANT GARDEN.
The honeysuckle, most English of shrubs, is reaching a new popularity, partly because it has more or less recently been reinforced from China ; and, most strangely, a very large number of Chinese plants flower in Britain almost as the natives. One of the few hedge plants introduced into this country is the small leaved Lonicera nitida, which is at the worst neat and dainty ; but it is without the special glory of the honeysuckle, a sweet and comely flower with a very long season. The evergreen and shrublike nature of Nitida is shared by Lonicera fragrans, recently much praised by Mr. Ellis (of the Gardening Dictionary). It is a shapely shrub, not a climber, it is evergreen and its flowers have scent enough to be famous in Araby. We can of course make our own native honeysuckles into bushes of a sort, by treating them us standards, and charming they are in this form. But fragrans has peculiar virtues. It is as early as any (some shoots already in blossom) and as sweet as any and it has the rarer virtue in its habit of standing- erect. May we call it a runner up of rihurnum fragrans, now in delicious blossom ; and the best shrub in the world for growing close to your home doorway, as the cottagers grow " Lad's Love," or Southern wood, or good
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