In the Garden Last year, being a little puzzled by
two bushes in the garden, both called the "tea-plant," I wrote to Kew for enlightenment. Last month these same two plants have inspired a number of inquiry letters to The Times. The essential botanical facts have been made clear, but the point of most importance to practical gardeners does not clearly emerge. It is omitted even in Mr. Osborn's most excellent and authoritative book, Shrubs and Trees for the Garden. One Lycium, or tea-plant, is now found wild in Norfolk. It has its uses in the garden, but will send up suckers any- where, even in a much-used gravel drive. 'The other tea-plant is almost indistinguishable in leaf and flower; but, unlike its much lustier cousin, it will bear masses of large brilliant orange berries. Few if any of our climbing plants are more charming. Lycium Chinense is as rarely lovely as Lycium Barbartun, common and ordinary. The names have been so much confused that it is as well for a purchaser to insist on
Previous page
