The Syringa
Syringa grandiflora.
SYRINGAS are suggestive of the highest glories of the spring. The "enamelled meads" and the flowery banks are more lovely in spring-time than Tom Tiddler's ground could ever have been, for his parterre was dotted with only gold and silver. Here on these green prairies and bosky banks we have rubies and amethysts and carbuncles and jacinths in endless variety, and in presence of them can afford to tell the truth that Tom Tiddler's ground is nowhere. But we speak of the higher glories of the spring, and those who look higher will see them arrayed on the leafy boughs of fruit trees, thorn trees, syringa trees, and trees of many shapes and names. The flowering trees are, beyond all doubt, the finest of all the furniture of the English garden in the best days of the flowery spring. This syringa, a familiar tree, cheapest of all in man's market as in nature's market, is a delicious beauty when its white flowers are set out like huge pearls upon a groundwork of green leaves, while the birds sing from its sprays the happy song that has always for its burden- "Spring is here, and Summer is coming."
The subject before us proposes a question in which gardeners are interested and amateurs often perplexed. What is the difference between a syringa and a philadelphus? In gardens and books they are strangely associated under the same generic distinctions, and when the large white flowers of a philadelphus or mock-orange are labelled syringa, the unscientific observer wants to know where and how it is related to the lilac, which is a syringa certainly. Now, between the two there is a great gulf fixed, and the only bridge across it consists of the running analogies that unite all plants. The fact is, a true philadelphus or mock-orange is a saxifrage; that is to say, it is a member of the order Saxifrageoe, in which occur the saxifrage proper, the francoa, hydrangea, deutzia, escallonia, ribes, and, to repeat it, the philadelphus. On the other hand, the lilac is an olive, or, to speak more correctly, a member of the order Oleaceoe, in which we find the phillyrea, privet, ash, forsythia, and the true syringa, or lilac. There are about thirty orders between those two groups of plants-a fact that justifies the remark above that a great gulf separates them.
The large-flowered mock-orange, Philadelphus grandiflorus, is known also as P. speciosus and P. latifolius. It is a deciduous shrub, rising to a height of six to twelve feet, with roundish leaves, and producing large white, sweet-scented flowers in the month of June. Although classed with spring-flowering shrubs, the time of its flowering may be said to be at least almost summer. There is a nearly allied species, S. inodorus, which, as the name implies, produces scentless flowers. The Japan species, named P. satsumi or P. sinensis, is a real beauty, slender in growth, with narrow leaves and large white flowers. The latest flowering species is Gordon's philadelphus (P. Gordonianus), an American species, producing flowers of great size. The common mock-orange of gardens is a respectable shrub of no particular value. It is the coronal or garland syringa (Philadelphus coronarius), a native of Europe, growing five to ten feet high, with smooth ovate leaves, and having an abundant bloom of creamy-white fragrant flowers which appear in the month of May. Thus the syringa, as commonly known, belongs to the spring rather than to the summer. Cultivation promotes variation, and in this case the usual results have followed, for there are some interesting varieties of the mock-orange to be found in gardens. The best of them for general purposes are the double-flowered and the variegated-leaved varieties. Having spoken of second-class shrubs, we feel bound first to beg their pardon for apparent but unintended depreciation. It is in the nature of our connoisseurs as well as of appraisers to compare values, and we are not disposed to rave about the mock-orange any more than about the real orange, but acknowledge at once that both are useful. Let the philadelphus, if it be the least aggrieved, do as some human philadelphists do: let it take consolation from the respectability of its family connections. In the order of saxifrages we find some first-class garden shrubs, which we will now name for the advantage of readers who do not happen to possess them. Dentzia crenata (syn. D. scabra) is a handsome, hardy shrub, rising to eight or ten feet, the habit neat and almost elegant, the flowers produced abundantly in the height of summer.
Hydrangea hortensis, japonica, and paniculata constitute a grand group of plants for the open garden. As they are well known, it would be waste of words to describe them; but it is not generally known that they are perfectly hardy in the climate of London.
Ribes sanguineum is a lovely garden shrub, not well adapted for town gardens. Its brilliant flowers are so acceptable in spring, that wherever it will grow it should be freely planted.
Escallonia macrantha is a glorious evergreen flowering shrub, a little tender in the climate of London, but as "hard as nails" anywhere on the western and southern coasts.