25 NOVEMBER 1949, Page 20

Green Old Age

In this temperate climate of ours (and it is to be remembered thit climate is not the same as weather) quite a number of deciduous shrub, seem to be on the way to becoming evergreen. Charles Darwin sugg c ;red that the blackberry bramble was in this class, but it is not alone in refusing to drop its green leaves. The privet, in the wild as in the garden, often avoids bareness all the year ; and in our hedgerows the wayfaring :rc: (viburnum lantana) is still, after a number of sharp frosts, as freshly green as viburnum tinus in our gardens.