Berberis.—The fruits of the Berberries are mostly covered with a plum-coloured bloom as in B. Aquifolium and B. Darwinii, but none of them is handsomer than our native B. vulgaris and its varieties. These have pendent racemes of fruits, varying in colour from the typical orange scarlet to white, purple, and black. B. Thunbergi coral-red, very beautiful.
Cratægus.—The finest of all the Thorns is C. Pyracantha, well named by the French "Buisson ardent." This shrub or small tree is valuable as a graceful evergreen, and when clothed (as it nearly always is in autumn) with its brilliant clusters of orange-red haws, it is one of the most beautiful objects in the garden. It is quite hardy in the open, but bears fruits more abundantly when planted against a wall. In that position also it is more easily protected from birds, which soon destroy the beauty of plants in the open. The variety Lælandi is distinct from the type, but hardier, and bears bright berries in abundance. The Cockspur Thorn (C. Crus-Galli) has several varieties, all producing pendent clusters of scarlet haws. The varieties like pyracanthifolia, with narrow leaves and flat-topped habit, are the best in this respect; they retain the fruits well into the winter, and are not eaten by birds so freely as many are. The haws of C. cordata, the Washington Thorn, are small, but a brilliant orange. C. punctata, C. Azarolus, and C. pinnatifida have the largest haws of any, and they are of a deep red, but fall early; the two first, however, are variable, and forms with yellow and other coloured haws belong to them. Those of C. macracantha are bright red, and in favourable years are so plentiful as to make the tree wondrously beautiful. C. coccinea and C. mollis have also red haws, larger than those of C. macracantha, but they fall soon after they are ripe. The Common Hawthorn is pretty, but more noteworthy is its variety aurea, with bright-yellow haws. In C. oliveriana they are black. The Tansy-leaved Thorn (C. tanacetifolia) has large yellow fruits, not badly flavoured, and with the fragrance of Apples. C. orientalis has haws of a bright sealing-wax red, but in its variety sanguinea they are of a deeper shade.
BABYLONIAN WILLOW BY WATERSIDE (Kew).
Cotoneasters.—Not enough use is made of Cotoneasters in gardens. They grow well in almost any soil, and are all marked by elegant or neat habit. They are very pretty when in flower, but it is in autumn, when laden with fruits, that they attain their greatest beauty. One of the tallest of them is C. frigida, and this bears a great abundance of rich scarlet-red berries in flat clusters. In the nearly allied C. bacillaris they are almost black. C. rotundifolia is a dwarfer shrub, but the finest of all the Cotoneasters for its fruit; it grows about 4 feet high, and has small, very dark green, persistent leaves; the fruits are about the size and shape of the haws of the Common Hawthorn, and are brilliant scarlet red; they are ripe in October, and from then till March make one of the most beautiful of winter pictures. In C. buxifolia the fruit is very abundant, but the red colour is not so bright as in the preceding. C. horizontalis, now getting to be a well-known shrub, has very pretty, globose, bright-red fruits, small but freely borne. C. Simonsii, of medium height, has brilliant red berries, as has C. acuminata, a near ally, but taller. The dwarfest section of Cotoneaster, viz., thymifolia, microphylla and its variety glacialis (or congesta), which are so useful for rockeries, have all scarlet berries.
Celastrus articulatus is a vigorous climber from Eastern Asia, remarkable for the great beauty of its fruits, which are golden yellow within, and when ripe split open and reveal the shining scarlet-coated seeds. C. scandens has orange-coloured seeds.
Coriaria japonica is very beautiful in autumn, when it succeeds as well as it does with Canon Ellacombe at Bitton, the fruits being covered then with the persistent petals which are of a lovely coral red.
WEEPING ASH; PALACE GARDENS, DALKEITH.
Cornus capitata (Benthamia fragifera) only succeeds to perfection in the south-western counties; its strawberry-like red fruits are very handsome.