Escallonia

Escallonia - The Escallonias in cultivation are often beautiful shrubs, unfortunately sometimes perishing in hard winters save in favoured districts. In mild places the common E. macrantha succeeds in the open, but, as a rule, it must be regarded as a wall shrub. Even in the mild districts it is cut down during severe winters, but it usually shoots up again strongly in the returning spring. There is a variety called sanguinea, with deeper colored flowers. Somewhat similar to E. macrantha is E. rubra; but the foliage is less handsome and the flowers are paler. E. Philippiana is very beautiful and hardy, as it may be grown as a bush in the neighborhood of London. It is an evergreen with small leaves, and bears a profusion of large panicles of small white flowers. It is a first-rate shrub, and one of the best of the Escallonias. E. pterocladon is very free-flowering, the small flowers being white and pink, while E. punctata has dark red flowers somewhat similar to those of E. rubra. Another species, E. montevidensis, also known as E. floribunda, bears large, loose clusters of white flowers, and there are seedling forms known under different names, especially in seaside gardens. Among these, E. Ingrami is one of the best, being hardier than E. macrantha, though not so handsome.

Perhaps one of the best of all is E. langleyensis, a hybrid between E. macrantha and E. Philippiana. It is a shrub of rapid growth, 8 to 10 feet high, with slender wand-like shoots gracefully arched, bearing small neat leaves of a cheerful yellow-green, becoming darker with age, and the stems wreathed throughout their length with vivid crimson flowers as large as a sixpence, in July. In cold places it needs the shelter of a wall, but is fairly hardy, and so beautiful as to be worth trying anywhere. S. America.