to be without
it? or who would not desire to have the fragrant chalices of _M.
soulangeana_, with their outside staining of purple, and _M. conspicua_,
of purest white in the early months of March and April? And why does not
every garden hold one, at least, of the sweet _Chimonanthus_, offering,
as it does in February, an abundance of its little blooms of a fragrance
so rich and powerful that it can be scarcely matched throughout the
year?

[Illustration: _A GROUPING OF MAGNOLIA STELLATA._]

_Cassinia fulvida_, still known in nurseries by its older name of
Diplopappus, in winter wears its fullest dress of tiny gold-backed
leafage in long graceful sprays, that are borne in such profusion that
they only beg to be cut to accompany the rare flowers of winter that we
bring indoors to sweeten and enliven our rooms.

Of small-flowering trees none is lovelier than the Snowy Mespilus
(_Amelanchier_), and for a tree of somewhat larger size the good garden
form of the native Bird Cherry is beautiful in the early year. The North
American _Halesia_ (the Snowdrop Tree) should be in every garden, either
as a bush or tree, every branch hung in May with its full array of
pendent bloom of the size and general shape of Snowdrops, only of a warm
and almost creamy instead of a cold snow-white colour.

Few spring-flowering shrubs are more free and graceful than _Forsythia
suspensa_, and if it can be planted on a slight eminence and encouraged
to throw down its many-feet-long graceful sprays it then exhibits its
best garden use. The Chinese _Viburnum plicatum_ is another shrub well
known but unfairly neglected, flowering with the earliest Irises.
Grouped with the grand _Iris pallida dalmatica_ it is a thing never to
be forgotten.

[Illustration: _AESCULUS PARVIFLORA (late July)._]

_Aesculus (Pavia) parviflora_, blooming in July when flowering shrubs
are rare, is easily grown and strikingly handsome, and yet how rarely
seen! _Calycanthus floridus_, with its spice-scented blooms of low-toned
crimson, also a late summer flower, is a fine thing in a cool,
well-sheltered corner, where the sun cannot burn the flowers. The Rose
Acacia (_Robinia hispida_), trained on a wall or house, is as beautiful
as any Wistaria, and the quality of the low-toned rosy bloom of a much
rarer colour. It is quite hardy, but so brittle that it needs close and
careful wall training or other support. To name a few others in the same
kind of category, but rather le