C. VIORNA.--Leather Flower. United States. This is a showy, small-flowered species, the flowers being campanulate, greenish-white within and purplish without. C. Viorna coccinea is not yet well known, but is one of the prettiest of the small-flowered section. The flowers, which are leathery as in the species, are of a beautiful vermilion on the outside and yellow within.
C. VITALBA.--Lady's Bower, or Old Man's Beard. A handsome native climbing shrub, common in limestone or chalky districts, and unusually abundant in the southern English counties. Clambering over some neglected fence, often to nearly 20 feet in height, this vigorous-growing plant is seen to best advantage, the three or five-lobed leaves and festoons of greenish-white, fragrant flowers, succeeded by the curious and attractive feathery carpels, render the plant one of the most distinct and desirable of our native wildlings flowering in August.
C. VITICELLA.--Spain, 1569. This is a well-known species of not too rampant growth, and a native of Spain and Italy. The flowers vary a good deal in colour, but in the typical plant they are reddish-purple and produced throughout the summer. Crossed with C. lanuginosa, this species has produced many ornamental and beautiful hybrids, one of the finest and most popular being C. Jackmanii.
C. WILLIAMSI (_syn C. Fortunei_).--Japan, 1863. The fragrant, white flowers of this species are semi-double, and consist of about 100 oblong-lanceolate sepals narrowed to the base. The leathery leaves are trifoliolate with heart-shaped leaflets. It proves quite hardy, and has several varieties.
GARDEN VARIETIES.--As well as the above there are many beautiful garden hybrids, some of which in point of floral colouring far outvie the parent forms. Included in the following list are a few of the most beautiful kinds:--
Alba Victor. Alexandra. Beauty of Worcester. Belle of Woking. Blue Gem. Duchess of Edinburgh. Edith Jackman. Fairy Queen. John Gould Veitch. Lady Bovill. Lord Beaconsfield. Lucie Lemoine. Madame Baron Veillard. Miss Bateman. Mrs. A. Jackman. Othello. Prince of Wales. Rubella. Star of India. Stella. Venus Victrix. William Kennett.
CLERODENDRON TRICHOTOMUM.--Japan, 1800. This is at once one of the most beautiful and distinct of hardy shrubs. It is of stout, nearly erect growth, 8 feet high, and nearly as much through, with large, dark-green, ovate leaves, and deliciously fragrant white flowers, with a purplish calyx, and which are at their best in September. Thriving well in any light soil, being of vigorous constitution, and extremely handsome of flower, are qualities which combine to render this shrub one of particular importance in our gardens.