Oh the beauty of the almost unknown, unappreciated, American climbing hydrangea! Why is it that so many rarely beautiful native plants are unnoticed, while less intrinsically good imported varieties sell so readily? Eight years ago I paid $3 per plant for climbing hydrangeas, which had been imported from Japan at great expense; while a far superior variety, native to the south, was unnoticed. To-day many plants of this American variety are in full flower, perfuming the air with their myriads of blooms. Spartanburg is near a bold water-course, on whose banks are found many rare and beautiful flowers, prized in our best gardens; but none are so beautiful or so little known as the climbing hydrangea. Over the stream is a long bridge, on whose stone pillars the hydrangea is clinging like a green veil, covering and beautifying the rough stone-work. In time it will, if left undisturbed, cover the whole frame-work. Near this is another which must be fully 50 years old, its trunk measuring at least two inches in diameter; after clambering to the top of a large elm tree it straggles on to smaller trees - hollys, elders, persimmons, etc., forming a jungle of beauty rarely met with.

Under it grow crow-foot, violets, habenaria, ferns, woodbine, yellow jasmine, chionanthus, kalmia and other wildlings of our forests. To-day the hydrangea from the ground to the topmost limbs is one sheet of bloom, flat-cymed, cream tinted, lace-like and fragrant. For its exquisite beauty and grace this plant deserves to be widely introduced to the flower-loving world. - J. S. R. T., Spartanburg, S. C.