White Wistaria.
These two flowers, the Dielytra spectabilis and Anemone Japonica, are among the valuable gifts which our gardens received through the visits to China of that adventurous collector, Robert Fortune. He went there first in 1842, and for some years constantly sent home fresh treasures. Among the best-known garden flowers of his introducing are the two named above, and Kerria Japonica, Forsythia viridissima, Weigela rosea, Gardenia Fortuni[-a]na, Daphne Fortunei, Berberis Fortunei, Jasminum nudiflorum, and many varieties of Prunus, Viburnum, Spiræa, Azalea, and Chrysanthemum. The fine yellow Rose known as Fortune's Yellow was acquired by him during a venturesome trip which he took, disguised as a Chinaman. The white Chinese Wistaria is regarded as the most important of his collections. It is deemed by some flower-lovers the most exquisite flower in the entire world. The Chinese variety is distinguished by the length of its racemes, sometimes three feet long. The lower part of a vine of unusual luxuriance and beauty is shown above. This special vine flowers in full richness of bloom every alternate year, and this photograph was taken during its "poor year"; for in its finest inflorescence its photograph would show simply a mass of indistinguishable whiteness. Mr. Howell has named it The Fountain, and above the pouring of white blossoms shown in this picture is an upper cascade of bloom. This Wistaria is not growing in an over-favorable locality, for winter winds are bleak on the southern shores of Long Island; but I know no rival of its beauty in far warmer and more sheltered sites.
Many of the Deutzias and Spiræas which beautify our spring gardens were introduced from Japan before Fortune's day by Thunberg, the great exploiter of Japanese shrubs, who died in 1828. The Spiræa Van Houtteii ([facing page 190]) is perhaps the most beautiful of all. Dean Hole names the Spiræas, Deutzias, Weigelas, and Forsythias as having been brought into his ken in English gardens within his own lifetime, that is within fourscore years.
In New England gardens the Forsythia is called 'Sunshine Bush'—and never was folk name better bestowed, or rather evolved. For in the eager longing for spring which comes in the bitterness of March, when we cry out with the poet, "O God, for one clear day, a Snowdrop and sweet air," in our welcome to fresh life, whether shown in starting leaf or frail blossom, the Forsythia shines out a grateful delight to the eyes and heart, concentrating for a week all the golden radiance of sunlight, which later will be shared by sister shrubs and flowers. Forsythia suspensa, falling in long sweeps of yellow bells, is in some favorable places a cascade of liquid light. No shrub in our gardens is more frequently ruined by gardeners than these Forsythias. It takes an artist to prune the Forsythia suspensa. You can steal the sunshine for your homes ere winter is gone by breaking long sprays of the Sunshine Bush and placing them in tall deep jars of water. Split up the ends of the stems that they may absorb plentiful water, and the golden plumes will soon open to fullest glory within doors.
There is another yellow flowered shrub, the Corchorus, which seems as old as the Lilac, for it is ever found in old gardens; but it proves to be a Japanese shrub which we have had only a hundred years. The little, deep yellow, globular blossoms appear in early spring and sparsely throughout the whole summer. The plant isn't very adorning in its usual ragged growth, but it was universally planted.
It may be seen from the shrubs of popular growth which I have named that the present glory of our shrubberies is from the Japanese and Chinese shrubs, which came to us in the nineteenth century through Thunberg, Fortune, and other bold collectors. We had no shrub-sellers of importance in the eighteenth century; the garden lover turned wholly to the seedsman and bulb-grower for garden supplies, just as we do to-day to fill our old-fashioned gardens. The new shrubs and plants from China and Japan did not clash with the old garden flowers, they seemed like kinsfolk who had long been separated and rejoiced in being reunited; they were indeed fellow-countrymen. We owed scores of our older flowers to the Orient, among them such important ones as the Lilac, Rose, Lily, Tulip, Crown Imperial.
