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Library

 
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ipines and bog-plants,
ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS
 

 

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

 

MY ROCK-GARDEN

Large crown 8vo. With Illustrations.
7s. 6d. net.

Second Impression.

 

LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD

 

 
 

 

ANDROSACE VILLOSA.
ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

BY

REGINALD FARRER

AUTHOR OF ‘MY ROCK-GARDEN,’ ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD
1908

All rights reserved
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MY MOTHER

col Tovde mrexrov orépavov && axnpdrov
Aetw@vos, @ Séarowwa, Koopnoas Pepa’
evO obre moupny aévot pépBev Bora (Except rabbits. )
ob HAGE rw cidnpos.
Hirrotyros, 72-6.
PREFACE

I witt not apologise, this time, for inviting enthusiasts
to accompany me round my little territories: for so
large a company was kindly enough to take pleasure in
My Rock-Garden, that now I am sure that those who
enjoyed the earlier book will be pleased to find, in this
volume, all the treasured rarities and delights which
pressure of space forbade me to include in its predecessor
—or, rather, forced me, with bitter lamentations, to
excise from its mutilated pages. With all the more joy,
then, do I offer this timely reparation, no less to my
friends who read than to my friends who are written of
—to the countless omitted beauties of my garden, whom

I had seemed to -pass over in an ungrateful silence.

REGINALD FARRER.
October 1908.
CONTENTS

CHAP.

I.

II.

Til.

IV.

VI.

VII.

Vill.

IX.

XI.

XI,

XU.

OF SHRUBS AND THEIR PLACING

OF SHRUBS, MOSTLY EVERGREEN

RANUNCULACEAE, PAPAVERACEAE, CRUCIFERAE

A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA

BETWEEN DIANTHUS AND EPILOBIUM .

FROM EPILOBIUM ON THROUGH UMBELLIFERAE AND
COMPOSITAE

OF ODD TREASURES .

THE BIG BOG AND ITS LILIES

THE GREATER BOG-PLANTS

IRIS . . . . .
THE MOUNTAIN BOG .

MORE OF THE SMALLER BOG-PLANTS 7 .
THE WATER-GARDEN

INDEX

PAGE

26
49
68

94

118
132
154
172
195
215
237
259

281
LIST OF PLATES

ANDROSACE VILLOSA . : 3 . . Frontispiece
EDRAIANTHUS SERPYLLIFOLIUS MAJOR : to face page 20
IncaRVILLEA GRANDIFLORA . 35 40
EDRAIANTHUS PUMILIO AND SAXIFRAGA GAESIA : 3 62
CaMPaNULA BARBATA anD C, pusitLa. Photograph

by J. A. Farrer, Esq. . A ‘ x5 82
Dianruus necLEctus. Photograph by J. A. Farrer,

Esq. § : . : ; as 94
OxaLIs ENNEAPHYLLA ‘ ‘ ; 53 108
‘CHILDREN oF THE Misr ’—Saxirraca Burnati

AND SaxXIFRAGA COCHLEARIS. Photograph by

J. A. Farrer, Esq. ‘ , 3 ‘ gs 126
GERANIUM LANCASTRIENSE, ELatines- CAMPANULA,

AND ANTIRRHINUM GLUTINOSUM s : 5 148
AQuILEGIa 6GLANDULOSA. Photograph by J. A. Farrer,

Esq. ¢ . : : : is) 164
SaxIFRAGA COTYLEDON 4 i : : 59 186
Iris tecrorum. Photograph by J. A. Farrer, Esq. . 3 202
CysTorpTERIS MONTANA AND MARANTHEMUM BIFOLIUM 5 222

SaxIFRAGA LINGULATA ‘ ‘ . : 59 238
xi
xii LIST OF PLATES
RaMonpIa NATALIAE . 7 é to face page 254

PRImuLA rNvoLucRaTA, PRIMULA CORTUSOEIDES,
PRIMULA DEORUM, ; ‘ : “3 270

The plates, except where otherwise stated, are from photographs
by Mr. Horner, of Settle, Yorkshire, and all were taken in the
Author’s own gardens.
ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

CHAPTER I
vx Of Shrubs and theiv Placing

Now, the supreme test of the rock-gardener’s craft lies
in the placing of his shrubs. Without expecting of any
European the unerring tact of Chinese and Japanese in
combining rock-work with shrub-life until a mighty
precipice is imitated, to perfect scale, within a space of
two or three yards of built-up stone, clothed, at all the
right points, with what seems the tormented, wind-
flogged vegetation of a thousand years, yet one may
deplore the sad fact that too often shrubs are dumped at
haphazard into the rock-garden, like punctuation into
some women’s letters, with no regard for relevance. As
a matter of fact, too much importance can hardly be set
on the right placing of big and little bushes among the
boulders—as by their wise disposition the scheme of the
whole may be keyed up to grandeur and illusion, or
reduced to a mean chaos. Of course the rules in this
matter are a question for individual observation; yet
here, perhaps, it is more possible than elsewhere to point
out definite details of right or wrong. For instance.
On the top of a mimic cliff plant prostrate overhanging
Junipers and Retinosporas—which, by curling reluctantly
over its rim, will give an impression of height and ferocity
to the rock-face. At the bottom, to one side or to the
other, set pillar Junipers, blue columnar Junipers, any
slender upright evergreen; for this, in turn, will add
A
2 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

immensely to the height and dignity of the rock. In its
face, to preserve and enhance the effect, you may insert
Juniperus sanderiana, or lovely little Pinus sylvestris
beuvronensis—a perfect Scotch fir in miniature, identical
in form and grace with its giant prototype, and therefore,
by its suggestion of being a great aged tree, making the
rock to which it clings into a very Cheddar Cliff or El
Capitan.

The great point to aim at is the preservation of scale.
The view should be so arranged that these little shrubs
cease utterly to seem little shrubs. And this is no preach-
ment of unworthy pretentious artifice, it is the logical
carrying out of the artistic principles upon which the
Noble and Ancient Craft of the Rock-Garden is based.
For, in the beginning, the Rock-Garden, springing, like
all our noblest achievements in Art, Religion, and Philo-
sophy, out of the East, was far more intimately allied
with evergreen shrubs than with the ephemeral glory of
flowers. A beautiful Mimésis of Nature was wanted,
and, in the rocky glens that the garden set itself to follow,
evergreens play a far greater and more permanent part
than flowers. It is our risk that we have introduced a
complicating note into the rock-garden by looking on it
not only (and, I fear, subordinately) as a piece of mimic
mountain-scape, but also as a territory designed and
adapted for the growing of particular flowers. But the
flowers are so beautiful that no real division of our
allegiance may fairly be dreaded—so long as we remember
that shrubs, together with rock, make the backbone, the
salient note of the rock-garden, and that the placing of
our shrubs is no less vital than the placing of our rocks.

Let no one tell me I am preaching too high a gospel.
If you are going to build a rock-garden, it is quite as
easy and quite as satisfactory to build it right as to
build it wrong. And the space at your disposal makes
OF SHRUBS AND THEIR PLACING 3

no difference whatever. It is as easy to be right, and as
fatal to be wrong, in four feet of ground—or four inches
—as in four acres. Critics, public and private, said of
My Rock-Garden that it would depress the gardener
whose opportunities were small, by insisting on vast un-
attainable perfections. ‘Therefore let me here make my
vehement Apologia by declaring that such an accusation
ought to be, and surely is, absurd. For, as a matter of
fact, the smaller the rock-garden the easier it is to build
it beautifully and in harmony. It is in dealing with big
ambitious spaces that the designer can most readily go
astray. But in a ten-yard strip at Brixton or Balham
you can triumphantly enjoy a thing of beauty as perfect
as the Kencho-ji or the Koraku-en—yes, and a paradise
as rich in lovelinesses as any upland prairie of the Alps.
And the key to all this perfection is not space, or money,
or ambitious stonework. The key is simply the one
word, proportion. Proportion, above all, in placing the
stone you have, proportion in adjusting to your stones
the miniature pines and firs you set among them. With
six stones, two conifers, and four Alpines, I would engage
to make in a yard of ground a view that should be
beautiful and satisfying and harmonious.

This is not the vain boast of a hierophant, but the
plain statement of one who loves alike both tree and
rock. Anybody in the world with eyes to see, with five
shillings to spend, and six feet or so of soil to spend it
on, can easily do as well, and very likely a great deal
better—seeing that I only speak from affection and
experience—not from any secret store of occult wisdom.
If any reader doubts me, let him take two plain block-
shaped mossy stones, of which the one is larger than the
other. Let him lay the smaller on a downward slope from
left to right; let him lay the other, the larger, behind it,
on a downward slope from right to left, so that their ends
4 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

overlap by three or four inches. Then,at the innerextremity
of the nearer block—the smaller—let him set a tiny pillar
Juniper. (He must proportion the size of this for himself,
of course, according to the size of his boulders.) Thus
the point of the V formed by the two stones will be two
inches or so to the tree’s left. ‘Then let him fill the fore-
ground with, say, Helxine Soleirol, Veronica canescens, or
some tiny Alpine, with, perhaps, to left or right, nestling
under the rock, a tuft of Sazxifraga burseriana Gloria.
And there—let him try the experiment—in a yard or so,
he will have a lovely, perfect picture, set up by his own
skill, at the cost of half-a-crown or so. And he will not
be the creator of that beauty, nor will the stones, nor I
that preach. The little shrub will be the keynote of the
whole. Oh, but pity fights in me with anger when people
lament to me, ‘ We can do so little because our garden is
so small. It is all very well for you, with plenty of
room, but what can one do with a miserable little bed
like ours?’ O fortunati, sua si bona norint! But a
little garden, the littler the better, is your richest chance
of happiness and success! Far, far happier, far far easier
to deal, as I have said, and say again, and shall shortly
shout if these complaints continue, to have a minute
compact plot of loveliness to scheme and deal with, than,
like hapless me, a great unwieldy tract of stone, necessarv
for the multitude of my plants, but, thanks to walls and
houses and such jars, incapable of being lugged into any
real coherent picture of beautiful design and proportion.
If I have not yet said much of deciduous shrubs, it is
because I cannot find much place for them in the rock-
garden. The rock-garden, it seems to me, imperiously
demands permanence of its inmates. Especially do you
require vegetation that will fill the dark long void of
winter, Therefore all deciduous shrubs are best banished,
in my view, to the outskirts and upper reaches of the
OF SHRUBS AND THEIR PLACING 5

rock-garden. If your space is small, exclude them alto-
gether, would be my precept; otherwise a bank of
Japanese Maples may be allowed in the middle distance,
but very great care must always be taken, whatever
deciduous shrubs you employ, and wherever you plant
them, absolutely to ignore them in the permanent scheme
of the garden, to place no reliance on them as features
in the design, no matter how lovely they may be while in
flower. Nevertheless the fact of their loveliness in flower
introduces a complicating factor. You cannot do with-
out them; and yet, for three-quarters of the year you
have to be doing without them. And thus I arrive at
my conclusion; they must be so cunningly placed that
while in flower they strike forcibly, proportionately on
the eye; and yet, when out of flower, usurp no prominent
place with their barrenness and decay, but fall naturally
into the background of the picture. And thus all points
in the foreground must be closed against deciduous shrubs.
They must alternate, up at the back, with evergreens, so
that the fall of their blossom means no loss. And, as
salient features in the scheme of the rock-garden, they
have no possibilities, and must resolutely be refused.
There is one exception, though, to this rule. And I
make it with reference to a thing which is less a shrub,
indeed, than incarnate beauty itself. Paeonia Moutan can
never be out of place on the rock-work (granted space, of
course). And yet the Tree-Paeony blooms for but a
short while, is leggy and gawky through the winter, leaden
and dull through the autumn. But, during the flaring
hours of its glory, it so holds the garden spellbound that
no sacrifice is too heavy to make for its presence. I
speak by book. Our masters, the Chinese, allow to
Paeonia Moutan a supremacy in the rock-yarden which
they concede to no other flower. Remember how
its beauty is made to crown the horror of that brilliant,
6 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

memorable horror, ‘Les Jardin des Supplices.”. And, where
they, Lords of the World in matters of art, permit the
advantages of the blossom to outweigh all the disadvan-
tages of the plant, we need not be ashamed or afraid to
follow their example.

They have even, with their deep skill, trained the growth
to their wish; on how many old plates of Famille rose or
Famille verte will you not see the gorgeous peony, ancient,
gnarled, and bossy in growth, flaunting the ardent satin
of its flowers from some fretted hollowed rock of a Chinese
composition? Perhaps we may never hope so to domi-
nate the Tree-Paeony ; remains the untutored loveliness of
its bloom for us to enjoy. And so, if your space be large
enough, surrender one rich corner against a cliff for one
great specimen of Moutan. Around and underneath
plant Helleborus Niger to fill the autumn, and perhaps
daffodils for the early hours of the spring. And so, in
flowering time, you will understand the Japanese sacred
passion for beauty which impels a whole nation to make
pilgrimage, in due season, to Jris Kaempferi at Horikiri,
to the Cherries at Mukojima, to Wistaria multijuga at
Kameido, to Paeonia Moutan at Daikonshima—there to
spend whole hours and days in adoration, writing little
psalms of praise and worship to the flowers.

But, remember, only the Japanese and Chinese 'Tree-
Paeony can claim the true Japanese ecstasy of affection.
Where the West has touched the products of the East a
disastrous degradation has resulted; and Europe now
swarms with truly horrible European Tree-Paeonies—
lumpish, double, semi-double, in tones of washy lilac and
magenta. Of these Western creations let us hear no
more; away with all the Mrs. Erasmus Potters, the
Madame Hector de Telle-Quelles, the Frau Oberhof-
gaerterin Schlagenbuschenheims. What can you expect
of creatures named like this? The Tree-Paeony of the
OF SHRUBS AND THEIR PLACING 7

East is a loose arrogant splendour ; the flowers are vast,
satiny in texture and sheen, sometimes torn and fringed
at the edges, sometimes double, sometimes single—but
always of the most imperious yet well-bred loveliness, in
every pure shade of colour, from the white snows of Fuji
at dawn, through faintest shades of pearl and pale rose to
the growing ardours of coral, salmon, scarlet, vermilion,
sanguine; and so on, into the deep tones of crimson, claret,
and a maroon that deepens almost to black. All these
marvels of gorgeousness did I mark down and collect
when I was in Japan, and now, through June, the rows of
Japanese Tree-Paeonies make my garden a blaze of be-
wildering colour.

About the culture of the Tree-Paeony, too, much vain
nonsense has been talked, and many people are deterred
from the culture of a most magnificent happiness by
purely visionary terrors. Paconia Moutan is absolutely
hardy, in the first place, hardy beyond cavil, absolutely
resistent to our climate. The only safeguard which can
help the plant, and which is really by no means essential,
is that it should not be put (in dangerous districts) in such
a position as to encourage premature growth which may
be nipped by a late frost. But as a matter of fact, in my
damp perilous corner of West Yorkshire, where late frosts
are almost a certainty, I have never had any difficulty or
any sort of disaster with all my hundreds of Tree-Paeonies,
planted as they are in every sort of situation and aspect.
The only advice I should give would be to plant them in
cool and shady places. Not only does this keep back
young growth (Paconia Moutan is a very early starter),
but it also brings out the full brilliancy of the flowers,
which against a cool background shine with a dazzling
refulgence which they can barely attain in the full glare
of the sun, against the uncompromising background of a
wall. Too often, too often is a sunny wall made the
8 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

background to Paeonia Moutan. Here the European
Tree-Paeonies, and even the Orientals, may thrive and be
glorious; but they will be far more congruous and beau-
tiful against a mossy rock or some quiet curtain of leaves.
For green (I wish this were as generally realised as it is
generally ignored) is a far more enhancing background
than glare. Some of the commoner Michaelmas Daisies,
leaden, dull, and utterly boring in the border, become
perfectly beautiful, lucent, clear, and purely blue when
planted out in the grass. And beyond this, the only
requirement of the Tree-Paeony is repeated heavy feeding
with the richest of manure—incongruous as such treat-
ment may seem for such sylph-sounding creatures as
Hope of Glory, Moonfoam, Clouds at Dawn, Fire-Flash,
Leaping Lion, Bridal Dream.

Another shrub for the big rock-garden whose treat-
ment I believe, on no authority of mine, to be generally
mistaken, is the great Californian Tree-Poppy, not alto-
gether unlike Paconia Moutan, white-flowered,on a smaller,
frailer, freer scale of flower, and a larger, lusher scale of
growth. Romneya Coulteri is usually cultivated under a
wall. It is so that I have always grown it, with the
most persistent disappointment. Every year it came up
ranker and more rank, and, in late summer, made abun-
dance of buds, which developed sporadically into flower
one at a time, producing no effect, and passing away
frustrate, before the advance of autumn frosts. Nothing
I could do seemed of any avail. I protected the old
wood, and I cut it off—with equal futility. Romneya
Coultert was written down a failure. It was only last
winter, when the key was given me, that I remembered
my first impression of the plant as a rounded, open-
ground bush in Mr. Woodall’s garden at Scarborough,
white with its huge filmy blossoms from crown to base.
And now information received leads me to understand
OF SHRUBS AND THEIR PLACING 9

that Romneya Coultert is an open-ground shrub, that it
becomes bored and lazy if grown under a wall, that only in
an unprotected place, swept by every wind and frost that
befalls, will the great Californian Poppy show the florifer-
ousness of its true character. Add to this a dressing of
lime rubble, and you will probably be picking blooms of
Romneya from June to November. And those blooms
are worth the winning—large and frail, built of the
thinnest crumpled white silk, almost diaphanous, like the
strange ghostly confections in a woman’s summer hat,
with a central boss of golden stamens, and a warm little
delicate fragrance like that of the Rose Maréchale Niel.
In hopes of such a harvest my Romneyas are all to move
out into the open, and abundance of their root-cuttings
shall be struck, too, in spring, to repeat the experiment
in every situation.

Of small deciduous shrubs for the rock-garden there
are many ; but few are fitted for a limited space. Cornus
and Rubus each give minute species. Cornus suecica, our
own rare native, I have never grown, nurseries always
sending me Cornus canadensis instead. This is a very
attractive tiny thing, which I myself have collected abun-
dantly in the Canadian Rockies. It grows about six
inches high, and runs freely in any quiet peaty place on
the rock-work. The whorled leaves are ovate, dark-
green; the microscopic flowers look like the crowded
stamens to an apparent flower made up of four big, snow-
white bracts. Swectca is similar, but not nearly so
attractive, I believe. The two Brambles, delightful for
any peaty ledge or nook (the spiny, leafless-looking Rubus
australis is not hardy),are Rubus arcticus and Rubus pedatus
—the first an upright little shrub of six or eight inches,
with flowers of bright carmine—which are brighter still in
the fruit-bearing variety, arcticus fecundus; the second
a very pretty, palmate-leaved trailer, with large white
10 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

flowers, which hails from North America. And the last
of these minute Brambles—which it seems almost an
insult to one’s intelligence to think of as shrubs—is our
own native, Rubus Chamaemorus. The Cloudberry dwells
in great colonies on all the high moors of Northern
England, Scotland and Scandinavia, hardly descending or
bearing any descent below two thousand feet. It abounds
on the saddle of Ingleborough, and again immediately
below the precipitous western face, but I have never yet
made any success with it in my garden, short as it must
find the journey thither. It has lived several seasons,
indeed, but rarely flowered, and never fruited. And
the fruit is its great attraction. The plant is about
six inches in height, with two or three rounded leaves,
Black-currant-like, thick and solid. The big white flower
stands solitary at the top of the stem, staring upwards.
And there, in time, forms the fruit, ripening about
August—an enormous raspberry of fewer and larger
carpels, russet-red at first, then ripening to a soft, golden
amber—when its taste has the sparkling acidity of the
Pomegranate. Unfortunately the grouse so share my
love for its juices that it is very rarely, on Ingleborough,
that I have enjoyed the Cloudberry ; and I have never
been permitted that Enough which is so fallaciously
described as being as good as a feast.

Of big brambles there are many—vast invasive weeds
for the most part, which must be banned by all who do
not possess unlimited acreage of wilderness. Rubus leuco-
dermis is handsome—tall, with white-washed stems; the
new flagelliformis has whip-cord shoots of eight or ten
feet ; hypargyrus I only have in seedlings; nutkanus and
biflorus are magnificent plants for the wild garden, but
cannot be allowed in any choice territory. They are
much alike, tall, dense growers, fearfully rampant, with
big, green currant-like leaves, and very big flowers, which
OF SHRUBS AND THEIR PLACING 11

in nutkanus are rose-red, and in biflorus, pure white.
But they are such prolific spreading pests that I have had
to banish both—and banish them, too, not merely to
the wilderness-garden, but out into the wild wood itself,
to sink or swim as they choose.

Last of the Brambles, though, comes a real jewel, in
Rubus deliciosus. The epithet, so often, so direly mis-
leading, is in this case justified up to the hilt. Rubus
deliciosus is very beautiful indeed—a middle-sized, woody,
deciduous shrub, producing long arching shoots, which, in
June, are weighed down, all along their line, by enormous
brilliant flowers of the purest white, like some strange
variety of wild-rose, only more floriferous than the most
generous of roses. Rubus deliciosus thrives perfectly in
any fair soil and situation, and is a frail shrub of the
greatest possible merit for the rock-garden, quite admis-
sible to the background even where space is limited.

Since we are now in the cousinhood of Rosa, we may
as well continue with Spiraea and Potentilla. Most of
the Spiraeas and all the herbaceous species must be dealt
of with the greater and lesser bog-plants; but of the
shrubby kinds, while most—Ariaefolia, mongolica, ar-
guta, Margaritae, Douglasi, Aitchisoni—are magnificent
shrubs far too large for all but the largest rock-gardens,
Bumailda and crispifolia are small enough to be made
welcome. Bumalda is the larger, and has heads of big
pink flowers—ruby-red in the form Antony Waterer ;
crispifolia is neater and smaller, with rusty-looking little
flower-heads, and screwed-up curly dark leaves. They have
a caterpillared look which repels me, and I find a repel-
lent chalky tone too in the pinks of Bumalda and Antony
Waterer (indeed in almost all the pink Spiraeas). So
that, without enthusiasm, I pass on to a front-rank rock-
garden treasure in the very rare and little-known Spiraca
Hacquetti (very close, if not identical with S. decumbens)
12 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

from the Dolomites. Hacquetti is as easy-tempered in
good soil anywhere on the rock-work as a weed, and
resembles a minute spreading arguta not three inches
high, with heads and garlands of little snow-white flowers.
It is a neat, tidy little grower, which all who possess it
should set to work propagating from cuttings, the beauty
and value of it being pre-eminent. I prefer it, so far, to
all I have yet seen of the newer, tinier Spiraea caespitosa,
which is nearly as dwarf as a moss and, I think, less
inspiring.

As for the Reine des Prés, Spiraea Aruncus, this great
herbaceous species is usually grown as a border plant, in
dense clumps. Grown thus, in huge masses, though it is
glorious in flowering time with its sheaves and plumes of
creamy bloom, it gives you no idea of its wonderful
beauty when occurring on some barren wet rock in one
single crown, carrying three, perhaps, of its graceful arch-
ing leaves, and one feather of flower on a four-foot stem.
It was thus that I first saw it years ago in the awful
gloom of the Georges de Trient, with three hundred sheer
feet of damp cliff on either hand, interlapping as they
mounted, to intercept the few faint ghostly rays of day-
light that filtered down into that gleaming den of dark-
ness. The air was eternally cold with twilight and the
spume of a roaring torrent, but, wherever plant could find
lodgment in the crannies, there Spiraea Aruncus had
sown itself, and its isolated spires of whiteness wavered
like phantoms in the chill gloaming. So, in my garden,
Aruncus, from two huge clumps in the borders above, has
sown itself here and there in tiny crevices that admit no
increase in the size or number of its crowns, and thus, in
single spikes, the plant has a rare grace and charm. I
am trying, too, following this delightful hint, to make it
germinate over the sixty feet or so of creviced limestone
precipice that overhangs the lake at Ingleborough where
OF SHRUBS AND THEIR PLACING 13

I am establishing a wild cliff-garden, which, when fairly
started, will be a wonderful sight of natural beauty.

Of the Potentillas there are two or three that are
genuine shrubs, and admirably fitted for the rock-garden.
Of front-rank among these comes our own native, Poten-
tilla fruticosa, a plant curiously rare, and yet curiously
abundant where it occurs. ‘Thus you will find it above
the High Force in Teesdale, that gardener’s Paradise,
where the botanist grows crazy for Viola arenaria and
Arenaria uliginosa, and the gardener’s bones are melted
within him by the ecstasy of Gentiana verna and spread-
ing miles of purple pansy. On either side the river, in
the sand, grows Potentilla fruticosa, a close, woody, wiry
shrub of two to three-foot height, covered all over with
abundance of big, brilliant yellow flowers. This treasure
is invaluable for any garden, and absolutely easy in any
soil. The only thing it requires is to be cut over, hard, if
ever it shows signs of becoming leggy. It will break out
anew from below, and re-form into a compact bush.
Very similar to this again is Potentilla floribunda—in-
deed hardly, to me, distinguishable, unless its flowers are
a little smaller. P. Salesowii is a newcomer, reported to
have whitish flowers. So far I only find it a small shrub
of rather ugly leaf and growth. The sulphur-blooming
dwarf Potentilla Friedrichseni I have not yet tried, though,
on the whole, I hear it well reported of. But the triumph
of the race is Potentilla nitida—though I don’t know if
I can fairly call this a shrub, seeing that its height is
only about two inches at the very most. Potentilla nitida
lives in the Alps of Tyrol and North Italy, in the higher,
sunny moraine- and débris-slopes — a minute, woody
trailer, with cloverish leaves, of a pure grey, brilliantly
silver on the reverse, and very large flowers of a rich
cherry pink, differing in depth of colour in different plants.
If the ordinary rosy type were not so beautiful, the snowy-
14 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

bloomed nitida alba, pure white against the pure silver of
the foliage, would be one of the loveliest little plants of
the rock-garden. All forms of Potentilla nitida, too, grow
with the most perfect ease and good humour in any fair
soil, in any sunny spot, and multiply from cuttings like
any bedding Viola. The plant’s only fault, and one to
be very carefully guarded against, is a tendency to go to
sleep in rich soil, and prove to be painfully shy about
flowering. This, however, can be remedied by planting
it in rubble and dust. I have not yet tried it in the
Moraine-garden, but it will probably succeed there and
bloom abundantly. Very similar, too, in habit is the
rare newcomer, apennina, of which my one plant
looks a twin of nitida, though I believe the flowers are
white.

Over such diverse-seeming species as Potentilla, Rubus
and Spiraea does Rosa extend the shelter of its great
name, and now, in due course, we come to deal with the
roses. For the most part these are middling shrubs (I
shall scarcely talk of the garden kinds, the doubles, and
hybrids), very welcome on the upper banks of the rock-
garden. But the first in merit for big and little terri-
tories alike is Rosa alpina, a small, neat, dense shrub,
finely thorny, with abundant lovely flowers of a deep
velvety crimson, and sweetly, richly fragrant beyond any
rose I know. Ona warm day the hot, deep sweetness of
this rose’s scent is something almost vertiginous. ‘Then,
when the flowers are fallen, succeed long scarlet heps that
prolong the charm of the plant till far into the autumn.
Rosa alpina is so easy-going and sturdy a species that it
will fend freely for itself if cast out unprotected in the
woods (indeed I wonder that it has never appeared as a
native), and, at the same time, it is so concise and modest
in growth that no one need be afraid to admit it into
even the smallest of gardens. Similar in size, but much
OF SHRUBS AND THEIR PLACING 15

less in charm—to my taste—are Rosa lucida, and Rosa
Maly.

Of the greater roses, any big garden will be glad of
such Ramblers as Dorothy Perkins and Lady Gay, of the
Wichuraiana hybrids—especially Gardenia, Jersey Beauty,
and dreamlike René André; of such huge wild species
as the fiercely thorny, crimson-blossomed acicularis, of
the beautiful four-petalled sericea, of ferruginea with its
grey and purple foliage and its large pink flowers, of
caroliniana, smaller in growth and delighting in very wet
ground, of rugosa and lovely new yesoensis, of the brilliant
Austrian briars, and above all, in favoured corners, of
those fanatic sun - lovers, berberidifolia, sulfurea and
bracteata. Alas, that lovely little shrub, Rosa berberidi-
folia, with its golden blooms basally spotted with chocolate,
is of no use to my damp climate; and bracteata, the
glorious Camellia-rose, with its solid shining leaves and
its immense snowy blooms, perpetually lingers on the
edge of death, blossoming indeed, but late, and always
cowering earthwards in the winter. Yet it is not cold
that is fatal to these sun-craving roses, so much as the
absence of ripening sun in summer. I have actually
kept Rosa gigantea alive in the open for two successive
winters unprotected. As for Rosa bracteata, its variety
Anemone has all the beauty of the type, if not more,
with twice the general usefulness and trustworthiness.
Rosa bracteata (or sinica) Anemone seems to be a robust
sport from the parent, differing in its far greater vigour
and resisting power, as well as in the colour of its
enormous saucer-like blossoms, which are of a particularly
entrancing soft pink.

All these roses, of course, need no special help beyond
fair or rich soil. As for Rosa gigantea, I believe no one
has ever flowered this Lord of Roses in the open in
England—nor, I fear, will any one succeed in doing so.
16 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

This Burmese giant of his race is a tremendous tropical
Liane, whose trunk is girthed like a man; his flowers,
nearly a foot across, if not more, are, says report, of a
gentle yellow. He has flowered indoors, I believe, at
Syon, and rumour whispers of a marvellous hybrid that
he has made out of doors in favoured Portugal, with
Gloire de Dijon. Shall we ever be privileged to see, or
fortunate in acclimatising, this portentous offspring of two
parents so august? As for the other large roses, arkan-
sana is only a young seedling with me, and seems, as a
matter of fact, inclined to be small; but I reserve a
corner for graceful great Rosa microcarpa, carrying
enormous arching boughs bent down by tremendous
heads of little white flowers, that in autumn are succeeded
by showers of scarlet fruit, very delicate and effective.
The same effect, only lovelier, do I expect from my
latest novelty, the coral-clustered Rosa yesoensis.

Of course, in big gardens, the great cluster-roses all
make pictures of unrivalled effect. Never shall I forget,
high in the mountains of Japan, one blazing day in
summer, how I came on Rosa polyantha making a
blinding snowstorm above a little trickling beck in a
nook of the jungle. Even so, over craggy boulders,
might one shower it in England—or any of the roamers,
indeed, such as the exquisite ‘ Blush Rambler.’

And here, to close my roses, I must put in a friendly
word for my own ignored countryman, the rare and
charming Rosa villosa. Rosa villosa, though I call it
rare, is, as a matter of fact, almost as common in the
north of England as Rosa canina. But it never wanders
southward ; its range is limited, and its charm is far
greater. It makes a much smaller, frailer bush than
the Dog-rose, admirable in size for the rock-garden.
The foliage is faintly grey with fine pubescence, the
big flowers are of a blazing crimson as they open,
OF SHRUBS AND THEIR PLACING 17

and, even at their fullest, are many shades darker and
more brilliant than the pale blooms of canina. To my
mind fosa villosa, in point of colour, is nearer to alpina
than to the Dog-rose; there are many shrubs, many
roses in our gardens, of less merit and beauty than this
neglected native. There is also an attractive Albino
form of villosa, but this cannot really challenge the
beauty of the type.

Passing now from the roses, no gardener fortunate
enough to possess a cliff of his own, will ignore the
great Wistaria of the East. With memories of Wistaria
multijuga my heart is full. In the Garden of Asia
stands recorded the beauty of the wild plant as I saw it
among the thousand islets of Matsushima, trailing down
those violet garlands over each fretted fantastic cliff of
sandstone, blending its cool grey softness with the golden
flare of Azalea mollis, while the still green water,
swelling lazily against the rocks, sent back in shifting
catches of colour the image of that riotous loveliness,
Or Wistaria multijuga again, at Kameido — arcades
and trellises of it everywhere, built out on long par-
titioned galleries over the waters of the temple lake,
while the worshippers, having each engaged his partition
for the day, sit at peace beneath the four-foot plumes
of pale purple, and adore the misty loveliness of the
canopy overhead. Do you want four-foot plumes of
Wistaria multijuga in England? Then give it all the
sun you can and all the richest food. It is far from
being a difficult plant to deal with, much less a hopeless
one; and remember always that the ordinary Wistaria
sinensis, even at her best, is but a poor pallid widow
compared with the bridal opulence of Wistaria multi-
juga.

Now that my heart is back in far Japan, it becomes
impossible for me any longer to keep silence on the other

B
18 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

Japanese treasures that I nurse in my rock-garden. And
nothing—not even if they grew to the size of St. Paul’s—
should deprive me of the Japanese Cherries, single and
double, rosy, white, and yellow (though the Yellow
Cherry, indeed, is more alluring in idea than in reality,
being of a faint, greenish-sulphur shade, which is very
effective on a big, well-flowered tree, but mean and
depressing on a small, young specimen).

Of the other Cherries, the dwarf rare Cerasus pro-
strata, is best for the rock-garden, while of the Plums,
glorious Mumé is, I begin to fear, of uncertain flower-
ing in my climate, like several of the Pyruses, which
perhaps I don’t treat properly, especially Pyrus spec-
tabilis, the most beautiful of all, of which young plants
from Japan blossomed last season till their frail
branches creaked beneath their burden of rose and ruby
snow—and this year are nothing but shoot and leafage.
Perhaps pruning will help the Japanese Plum. Or does
it require more summer ripening? In Japan it makes
so bewildering a spectacle of beauty through grey, icy
March, that one would spare no pains to have it in
England doing likewise, if possible. The two giant
plants in my shrubbery are two specimens I bought for
a shilling each at a night-fair in Tokio. They lived in
my house for a fortnight—sheer indistinguishable balls
of white and pink. Now they have shot up and
about like Jack’s beanstalk, waving enormous whip-cord
shoots. And they each average perhaps five blooms a year.

The same trouble attends my culture of Chimonanthus
fragrans, that most heavenly - scented of all heaven-
scented flowers. Long had I known of it, and never
seen it, till one day I walked in a certain lovely garden
on the Genoese Riviera. And there, in a cold, shaded
corner, chill with January’s frost in unsunned aspects, I
was transplanted to heaven on the wings of an ineffable
OF SHRUBS AND THEIR PLACING 19

fragrance. Of course it was Chimonanthus fragrans—a
great bush of it, clothed all over with those dull pale,
waxy flowers, of which one is enough to fill a whole big
house with bliss. But though I have great bushes now
at home—bushes that shoot and thrive and ramp—yet
I have not yet had even that one flower annually for
which I would almost compound. Not only, by the way,
are the blossoms of Chimonanthus thus scented, but if
ever any one has noticed the curious musty sweetness that
hangs characteristically about everything imported from
Japan, and has wondered what the cause may be, let me
advise him to pick off and pulverise some dry, dead twig
of the Chimonanthus. Immediately, and with no money
spent on train or steamer, he will find himself standing
in the avenue that leads up to the temple of K’annon
Bodhisat’ at Asak’sa, in the full roaring tide of Japanese
life. So poignant, so instant is the call of a fragrance.
Another Japanese shrub of high rank for the rock-
garden (for the Caiycanthus-cousins of Chimonanthus
awake no zeal in me, nor will I linger over half-hardy
Serissa foetida, whose pretty little blue stars do most un-
utterably stink) is the heavenly Bamboo, Nandina domes-
tica, which unites the delicate leafage of an immense
Vancouveria or Spiraea with loose, lovely showers of white
or scarlet berries, which Europeans in the East use at
Christmas as a substitute for Holly. Nandina is a very
holy plant in the East; it is always planted by every
verandah, at the place where the bowl stands on its
stoop for the washing of hands. And in England,
with me, despite sad prophecies, I have found Nandina
perfectly easy and perfectly hardy. It loses much of
its leafage in winter (hence I class it here as deciduous),
but never fails to continue thriving robustly. Of course
it does not fruit, and never will fruit, but the beauty of
the ‘ fronds’ is so conspicuous as to set it in the front
20 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

rank of small shrubs for the rock-garden. Especially is
it lovely when, with spring, the young green of the
dawning leaves contrasts with the russet and ruby of
last year’s persisting sprays.

But perhaps, of all shrubs introduced in the last twenty
years, Buddleia variabilis, in its varieties, takes the first
place. Almost tropically luxuriant is this wonderful
great ragged bush, which is hardier and more easy-going
and more rampant than many a Lilac or Syringa (not to
mention, too, that it blooms in August, when all other
flowering shrubs are long since over and done with).
Almost tropically gorgeous, too, with its countless fox-
brush spikes of dense violet flowers, golden-eyed and
sweetly-scented (which last so much longer if only they
can be protected from the ravages of bees). Buddleia
variabilis requires hard pruning, and its flowers do not
stand in water, otherwise the plant has no fault of any
kind, for any position in the whole garden. There is
now a prostrate form of it, too, which I am trying this
year. If it proves as magnificent as its description, this
should be as invaluable for the rock-garden as type
variabilis is for the garden in general. Globosa I have
not yet grown, it being too large; and the almost dizzily
sweet asiatica is a cold greenhouse plant. Remains
Buddleia Colvillei, reported as a miracle of beauty and
difficulty, delicate, miffy, shy,—but glorious, in its native
Himalyas, with showers of big rosy trumpets over soft
grey leaves. I foolishly and desperately resolved last
year that I would have a try at Buddieia Colvillei. 1
ordered a plant which, when it arrived, turned out to be
at least three inches high. In utmost trepidation and
scorn of my own rashness, J planted it out none the less,
under a wall, in good soil. Immediately the most fearful
storms, sleets, and frosts swept down across the north,
followed by a blighting drought accompanied by unceas-
EDRAIANTHUS SERPYLLIFOLIUS MAJOR.

 
OF SHRUBS AND THEIR PLACING 21

ing cast winds. I said good-bye, in my heart, to Buddleia
Colvillei. But Buddleia Colvillei was not to be got rid
of. It grew all through that weather, as I have rarely
seen a plant grow; and by autumn it was three feet
across, bushy and robust, and about two feet high. I
sheltered it with gorse as our last dreadful winter grew
on, but, so far as I can see, Buddleia Colvillei, though
cut back, seems inclined to break again, more vigorous
than ever, regardless of inclement seasons. When or
whether it will flower remains, of course, a different
question.

Now comes the last great race of deciduous shrubs (for
Azalea is to be lumped, nowadays, with Rhododendron)
for the rock-garden. The one crime of which all the
Magnolias except summer-blooming glauca are guilty, is
of flowering within reach of late frosts which reduce their
pure and waxy fragrance to a mass of brown feculent
rottenness. Otherwise they are all rivals in beauty and
charm. Glorious Yulan and its kin are perhaps too large
for small gardens ; even Kobus and Watsoni develop into
trees. But surely they are so delicious that every garden
must allow them room to the last possible moment. All
are easy, all are fragrant, all are magnificently, regally
beautiful. I grow Kobus, Watsoni, glauca, rustica rubra,
Yulan, obovata, hypoleuca (the great forest-Magnolia of
the Japanese Alps), stellata, tripetala, and the very rare
salicifolia. Stellata, of course, is the jewel of jewels for
the rock-garden—quite a small, close shrub, three or four
feet in height, with myriads of pearly goblets that open
out into stars. Rustica rubra is a variety of uncertain
origin, akin to sowlangeana, with big chalices of soft deep
rose. (Alas, that the supreme beauty of all, Magnolia
Campbelliae, is of no use over the greater part of England,
and even in favoured corners of Ireland and the south
only deigns to show its huge coralline cups occasionally,
22 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

in certain seasons, between tracts of barrenyears.) Watsoni
is a straggler, akin to parviflora, but bigger and far
hardier, with round snow-white balls, whose central cone
is ringed in by a circle of vivid scarlet anthers. Glauca
is a small American shrub, loving wet places, and pro-
ducing its creamy, fragrant blossoms in July and August.
It has, so far, though a success, been less of a joy to me
than Kobus, stellata, and Watsoni, which all do wonders.
Kobus is my particular joy. It is an astonishingly dense,
vigorous shrub, rapidly growing on into a tree ; its flowers
are not enormous, nor very solid, but are borne in the
most splendid abundance when the tree gets on in years.
It is a thing of obviously first-class merit, and I wonder
that it has not been more widely proclaimed. As for
salicifolia, it is due to have remarkable purity and
brilliance and beauty. So far, though, my healthy plants
are but babies, and will not flower for some years. All I
can say at present is that every part of the plant—
leaves, stem, and bark—are deliciously fragrant. And, to
conclude, any light cool soil, peaty or not, will suit all
these Magnolias.

Remains now only the race of Knotweeds, to which
duty, rather than affection, bids me concede a place in my
gardens. I make an exception, however, in favour of
Polygonum vaccinifolium, which is a rock-garden plant
of very high value, as all who grow it can bear witness—
a trailing, rock-hugging mat of woody, small-leafed
branches which in autumn are covered with an inexhaust-
ible profusion of erect little rosy spikes four inches high
or so. Its generosity is no less valuable than its time of
blooming, and its exemplary ease and good temper no
less conspicuous than either. It grows eagerly in almost
any soil, in any open aspect, and multiplies readily when
pulled to pieces. As small as this is the linear-leaved
P. Emodi, which, however, does not spread so fast or so
OF SHRUBS AND THEIR PLACING 23

far, but makes a spider’s web of growth, from which come
up the heads of deep pink flowers. This is a rare, new
species, but has no charm or preciousness to compare
with vaccinifolium. The equally rare P. sphaerostachyon
—though, by the way, this is frankly herbaceous, not a
shrub at all—is, to my taste, downright ugly—an un-
distinguished little plant eight inches high or more,
too leafy for its dull globes of rosy blossom. Half the
size of this, to continue my divagation, is our own rare
native, P. viviparum, very similar, but much prettier,
with spikes of pearl-white flowers that produce their
young ones ready born. It is reported from our alpine
meadows to the east of Ingleborough, and I have found
it abundantly in upper Teesdale. Inthe garden it thrives
quite happily almost anywhere, even if it prove of no
very solid permanence.

Returning to the greater, shrubby Knotweeds, they
are, for the most part, only fitted for the largest, wildest
garden, so commanding is their stature, so invasive and
violent their development. Polygonum saghalinense is
the most really tropical of all our cultivated plants—and
this though it hails from so bleak and untropical a corner
of the world as the undesirable convict island which is
the contended bone between Russia and Japan. It rises
to twelve feet or more, in single arching boughs, clothed
with great leaves like magnified Hazel. It dies clean
down in winter, and runs vehemently about underground,
so that, in rich favourable, sheltered glades (in which
alone it can attain its fair development) it becomes the
most stately of weeds. Rather smaller in leaf, size, and
habit, is P. cuspidatum, which, instead of the single
sprays, sends up abundance of boughs from a yearly-
thickening central crown. This, no less easy and hardy
than saghalinense, is perhaps a safer plant to admit
within sight of the rock-garden—though in such choice
24 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

territory the only Polygonum which must always be in-
dispensable is vaccinifolium. Oayphyllum is still smaller
than cuspidatum, with a profusion of snowy plumes in
autumn; and a. climber of great merit is baldschuanicum,
which makes curtains of greenery in no time over a bush
or stump, and then, before it dies down, glorifies October
with a cloud of white.

The Fuchsias, brilliant race, do not, of course, do very
much for me in my damp, ill-wintered climate. The little
hybrid, Bouquet, thrives well, and Riccartoni persists.
And these are of high value for the rock-garden, particu-
larly Bouquet—a tiny, tidy little herbaceous shrub, if one
may use so paradoxical a term, which always keeps its
position and proportion. But in gardens where the sun
is lord, many more of the Fuchsias may be used. I shall
never forget my first realisation of what a hardy Fuchsia
means. It was on the western coast of Ireland. Be-
neath the august cone of Croagh Patrick lies a tiny little
ruined abbey, buried almost to its eaves in the encroach-
ing sands of the shore. Far away beyond, a great square
island, blue and very pale, stands up on the uttermost rim
of the great pale sea. And, in this remote corner of peace
and death, Fuchsia Riccartoni has made itself a beautiful
shroud for the dead shrine. Everywhere, amid the walls
and ruins and sand-banks, wave its long slender arms, and
a million scarlet trumpets in the sunlight dance up and
down with every faint cool breath that hovers land-
wards over the face of the water. Only their incessant
flicker disturbs the immemorial tranquillity which holds
this heart of long-dead holy activities, as it lies buried in
the shifting sand, embalmed in the golden tranquillity of
a burning summer afternoon. And, looking back in
memory, I scorn the specific. To Riccartoni, far down in
the years, I refuse to swear; Fuchsia is all that matters.
And, as for tiny trailing Fuchsia procumbens, for the
OF SHRUBS AND THEIR PLACING 25

rock-garden, with its dull wee flowers and huge scarlet
berries, Mr. Eden Phillpotts may luxuriate in its hardi-
ness, but with me it is a delicacy to be nurtured (without
ecstasy) in the vinery. Even on his promise I can hardly
dare believe that it will ever prove winter-hard with us.
26 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

CHAPTER II

ME Shrubs, mostly Cbergreen

Mostry, I head this chapter, because in the great ever-
green races there occur deciduous species, and vice versa.
And it would be jerky and pedantic to keep my reader
hopping backwards and forwards from chapter to chapter
in order to join up the disconnected ranks of Magnolia
or Azalea. Nor will I make apology for using this latter
name. It is hard that, where botany swarms with ugly
names, hideous, hard, teutonic, latinised Russ and bastard
Greek, a name so simple, gracious and euphonious as
Azalea should be torn from us, and we be left with no
refuge but the lumbering if orotund syllables of Rhodo-
dendron. Therefore, since no one can be in doubt what
is meant by Azalea, I will continue in the old, superseded
ways. If all races were so unmeaningly, so sweetly
named, our gardens would be happier, our labels less
deforming. But we are at the mercy of chance, it seems,
in these matters. It was mere luck that the eponymous
hero of the Yulans was able, being a M. Magnol, to
supply so appropriate and fragrant a generic name as
Magnolia. On such a frail coincidence does the question
of nomenclature depend. Suppose the Magnolias were
Smithias, Von Borkias, Mulliganias? And it is mere
luck that they aren’t. If their discoverer had had his life
saved by the Mulligan (of Ballymulligan), and had
nourished due gratitude, Heaven knows what might have
OF SHRUBS, MOSTLY EVERGREEN Q7

happened! Nothing could well have saved us from
Mulligania. Which leads me to a despairing proposition.
Fitting, fair, and honourable it is (as Sir John Hooker
points out) that great gardeners, explorers, lovers of these
delights, should be commemorated and honoured in the
names of flowers. But Sir John slides over the great
difficulty of the question: we are not all Magnols, and
since no man has power over his own name, and since
a lovely, floral soul may be clothed in such syllables as
Smee or O'Higgins, why not alter our system of nomen-
clature, and avoid the danger of having to damn a plant
eternally under the style and title of O’Higginsia or Smeea?
There is actually—think of it!—a rock-garden plant
called Boehninghausenia. On the same principle, too,
mountains great, divine and glorious, must be saved
from the indignity of being labelled Mount Baker or
Mount Bullock Workman. My plan would be to adopt
the Japanese, the savage principle, of naming for fitness ;
and, when a plant comes up for name, my compliment to
the great horticulturist would take the form, not of ask-
ing him or her to stand god-parent to a possible Budlock-
Workmannia Fanniae, but of giving him the right to
choose the novelty’s name himself. Personally I should
value this right far more than the ascription of a species
under my own syllables, and take more pleasure in regis-
tering Saxifraga Gloria than Saxifraga Farrert.

Azalea, then, leads off with Azalea procumbens, which,
to be correct, ought to be spoken of rather as Loiseleuria
procumbens. The Alpine Azalea is the strangest and, I
think, with the exception of Pyxidanthera and Andromeda
hypnoeides, the smallest of all northern shrubs. It is as
flat as any lichen or any starved mat of thyme. Indeed,
but that its tiny leaves are leathery, bright green and
glossy, the plant is not unlike a thin tangle of wild thyme.
On this appear, in spring, abundant flowers, gazing upwards
28 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

into the eye of day, comparatively enormous little cups,
waxy, coral-pink, delightful. You will find the Alpine
Azalea all over the higher ranges of Scotland, and every-
where in the upper Alps. It makes a great part in that
fine, close lawn which you reach below the lowest lip of
the moraines ; and its frail, hard woody branches go trail-
ing far and wide, making warp and woof for the Andro-
saces carnea, vitaliana and Chamaejasme, for the alpine
clovers, Oxytropids and Phacas, for the gentians verna,
brachyphylla and nivalis. Unfortunately it is a very diffi-
cult plant to collect, and not by any means an easy plant to
grow. It is strange that a native should be perverse, but
Azalea procumbens requires a good deal of care—perfect
roots to start with (a sufficiently hard proviso), then a
cool, open space, in light, cool peaty soil, rich with
vegetable humus. At present, I believe, I have only one
thriving plant, and that but small. Nor is it easy to get
more. This year, however, I am trying the experiment
of bringing down a quantity of the fine powdered black
humus, decay of decay of decay from the very beginning
of things, which is to be collected from peat-hags high on
the saddle of Ingleborough. Of the chemical properties
of this pulverised stuff I leave wiser heads than mine to
speak ; in a way the nutritive qualities of this extinct
rottenness must have changed or failed. And yet it plays
an incalculably great part in the life of the higher Alpine
vegetation, contributing some mysterious gift essential to
the well-being of such things as the arctic Andromedas,
and the mountain Azalea. Possibly, though not in itself
food, it provides some substitute for food—of which the
truly Alpine plants are very impatient in any excessive or
obvious degree—perhaps, that is, the humus acts as a sub-
tilised nutrition inoffensive to the dainty tastes of these
mountaineers, and yet satisfactory to their needs.

Of the other Azaleas my song is still sorrow. There
OF SHRUBS, MOSTLY EVERGREEN 29

are, in my limy soil—limy in spite of all the most elaborate
diggings and delvings and drainings (for lime is no less
difficult to exorcise than love)—only two exceptions to the
general rule of sickliness among my Azaleas. Bog-haunt-
ing viscosa have I tried, fragrant with white flowers in
late summer ; fiery orange calendulacea, tawny sinensis,
rosy apple-blossomed Vaseyi, profuse magenta-flowered
amoena. And all, all are modified failures here, in the
course of a year or two. One exception is the living fire
of Azalea mollis, most blazing and diverse of all flame-
flowers. And the other, by a strange unexpected freak, is
the delicate Azalea indica itself. Now Azalea indica is the
ordinary greenhouse Azalea; and, when I imported a
quantity from Japan, I laughed at myself for daring to
plant them out in the open immediately. Not one of
them in five years has ever suffered from cold or drought
or lime or damp; rarely have any of them failed to pro-
duce abundance of bloom. And this though they are
planted in merely ordinary garden soil, permeated with
lime, and though quite unsheltered and unprotected.
Some are under a wall, it is true, but the rest, among
which are some of the most brilliant, stand out in the
open, dead level, heavy-soiled plain of the bog-garden.
And this once more encourages me to proclaim my gospel.
Half-hardy plants, imported from cold districts, prove
often to be as hardy as the most robust of natives. From
the icebound plain of Tokio all importations of delicate
species are, a fortiori, perfectly willing and able to resist
the utmost rigours of our far less rigorous winters. I
even have hopes that I may prove this of Nelumbium
speciosum. 1am importing the Holy Lotus from its most
northerly limit of distribution, in the trust that thus its
tubers may be victorious over our pale climate.

In point of fact, I cherish a dream that all gardeners are
far too little venturesome about attempting paradoxical
30 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

experiments. Last year I hurled out all the old green-
house Cyclamens—huge lumping old corms—on to a
light-soiled bank beneath the shelter of thickly planted
deciduous honeysuckles. They all lived and continued
to thrive, though the weather, for the next six weeks, was
nothing short of appalling. More than a year has passed,
and it looks as if some of them might yet live awhile.
This, of course, is a platitude in warm Cornwall, but a
paradox in frost-swept Yorkshire Alps. And such experi-
ments cost little; one tries, perhaps, the corpora vilia of
superfluous plants. And then what is the amazed joy of
success! In this last autumn I threw away, in a pet, a
worthless plant of Odontoglossum crispum, vexed at having
overlooked it when disposing of my third-raters a week or
two before. Frost was ruling at the time, and next day
I regretted the cowardly brutality of my action. So I
went and quested for my victim, set on making amends.
And there, on the frozen grass, I found the dispotted
Odontoglossum still alive and well. This changed my
plans; I took it up and planted it in the rockery, in a
sheltered corner, near the protecting shade of Cistus
laurifolius. It was an absurd experiment, but I could
not resist the temptation of trying it. Of course the poor
thing ultimately died, but I solemnly declare and affirm
that there, in the open, Odontoglossum crispum held out
for a solid three weeks, during which time rain and
tempest alternated with bitter frost, and the temperature
was generally down to goodness knows where at night.
Of all evergreen flowering shrubs though, for the rock-
garden, great and small, the enormous race which we call
Rhododendron (exclusive of Azalea) is the most august.
Here, again, I am stumped by the impossibility of elimi-
nating lime from my soil. However, I have induced no
fewer than three of the Himalyans to thrive—though,
started as tiny plants, they have not yet flowered. These
OF SHRUBS, MOSTLY EVERGREEN 31

are fulgens (this, I remember, bloomed last year, but was
cut by frost), most dazzling of scarlets in the garden,
luscombeanum and campylocarpum. I even induced the
royally beautiful Awcklandi to survive through three un-
protected winters. The latest novelty I am trying is Smir-
nowi, large-leaved, but reported very slow-growing, with
big pink flowers. But the great Rhododendrons cannot
be introduced too carefully, even too sparingly into the
rock-garden. Almost invariably their growth is either
rounded and lumpish, or straggling and gawky. Their
leafage, too, when the brief glory of the flowers is gone, is
leaden, dull and depressing. For my part, I detest and flee
the vast pies and puddings of Rhododendron that prevail
in all parts of England where the soil admits ponticum,
catawbiense and their hybrids as almost wild plants. ‘And
I’m sure it’s no ill-breeding,’ as the classic poem has it,
‘if at these repulsive pies, Our offended gorges rise.’
They are terribly overdone; the blaze of them in bloom
is overwhelming ; for the remaining eleven months of the
year they make mere humped domes of lead, gloomy,
uninteresting, and undistinguished by any countervailing
grace of line, form, or carriage.

It is with the smaller species that Rhododendron comes
to its own in the rock-garden. And yet I must not shrink
from the truth. I almost dislike the Alpenrose. In fact,
I do. I have no notion why, but for this glory of the
Alps I can muster no affection at all—hardly even esteem.
Its growth is generally straggling, and I am not fond of
the flowers. And this coldness is not due to the fact that
neither ferrugineum nor hirsutum ever enjoys itself in my
gardens; for I like the plants as little in full riot on
the slopes of the Oberland as I do in sickly dwindling
specimens on my rock-work. And so let me leave them
to others. Perhaps their rather harsh colour, not chalky
exactly, nor magenta, but to me mysteriously acrid and
32 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

vulgar, influences my opinion; for I have no such
prejudice against lovely Rhododendron racemosum. 'This
makes a charming wee bush (and grows admirably with
me) clothed with hard little ovate leaves, greyish beneath ;
and the abundant flowers are of a rich and lovely soft
apple-blossom pink. The plant is of recent introduction,
and shows no signs of becoming commoner, though quite
easy to grow. Of the small Rhododendrons I think it
incomparably the best—unless I am to make an excep-
tion in favour of the newly-shown and figured R. inéri-
catum, which, if the Botanical Magazine tells truth, has
big flowers that verge on blue! As to this, the Jew
Ofella can think as he chooses; the colour is by report a
very rare attractive shade. Otherwise the little Rhodo-
dendrons run dreadfully to unclean lilacs. Myrtifolium,
ovatum, parviflorum are all useful plants; so is their
cousin, the deciduous Rhodora canadensis, an American
peat-bog plant, of rather untidy habit, with dull flowers
of bad tone that appear before the leaves. As for Rhodo-
dendron kamschaticum, this much-vaunted rarity is not,
I think, worthy of a high place. It is a minute, almost
arctic shrub, wiry and frail-growing, with very large
single blooms, which alas! (at least whenever I have seen
it) were of a sad, unmeritorious magenta.

Of Chamaecistus I have already spoken, but one Azalea-
Rhododendron remains to be described, much more in
sorrow than in anger. This is the marvel that I talked
of in the Garden of Asia as Azalea ‘ Gloria,’ and before
its beauty all other Azaleas flee and hide their heads.
And I say this deliberately ; as you go up to Nikko and
beyond, to Yumoto, all the wild hills, to eight thousand
feet and more, are a rolling prairie fire of Azaleas, in
every shade of splendour, from the candid amber or
salmon of mollis, through the whole gamut of yellows,
white and orange, to scarlet, crimson and violet. And
OF SHRUBS, MOSTLY EVERGREEN 33

then suddenly comes Azalea Gloria into sight, and all the
others are forgotten. Azalea Gloria is really Rhododen-
dron dilatatum, and it makes a solid band of colour across
the hills below Nantai-San in the strangest way, never
descending below or rising above a. level so sharply defined
that its bounding lines never seem to shift. A hill that
just rises to the required height is capped by the Rhodo-
dendron ; a greater one is barred by it straight across
the slope.

Rhododendron dilatatum is a tall, loose shrub, with
silver-white bark, deciduous, and blooming before the
leaves. Only on mature plants are the flowers freely pro-
duced. They come before the leaves, and are very large,
of the purest and most brilliant cherry-pink, absolutely
devoid of the brassy or magenta tones that disfigure so
many of the Azaleas. A well-flowered specimen is the
most beautiful sight I have ever seen in the way of a
flowering shrub—the effect is of an innumerable crowd of
rosy butterflies alighted, each by itself, on a naked silver
tree—so delicately balanced are the wide trumpets, each
on a distinct pedicel of its own. With great difficulty
and after many failures and delays did I succeed, two
years ago, in importing a hundred young plants of the
Rhododendron. Of these only about half a dozen sur-
vived, though treated with every care. Rhododendron
dilatatum is an Alpine shrub, and the rigidity of its
limitation proves that its requirements are definite and
imperious. It grows in the loose spongy soil of the
mountain woodland, and its roots love to wander through
the cool, light mass amid the great stones beneath the
surface, which preserve the moisture even more faithfully
than the faithful copsewood and humus above. And I
have little hope that, except by some rare fluke of some
individual's luck, or some individual plant’s persistence,
we shall ever be able to make an easy garden plant of

c
34 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

beautiful shy Rhododendron dilatatum. Meanwhile, too, I
am haunted by a doubt whether the name or my memory
is false. As to my memory, I can absolutely swear—to
the glory of that rosy Azalea; but have I, have I, after all
my trouble, succeeded in getting the right name? ‘To
doubt is weakness; I must steel myself against it. But
the fact is that last year one of my few surviving plants
emitted one poor sad flower. It was magenta. It was
ugly. Yet there is the silver bark, there are all the other
details. Beyond question the bloom was only poor
because the plant was young and sad and homesick and
hectic. With restored health—if ever that arrives—will
come also the size, the purity, the radiance of the blossom
I adored at Chuzen-ji.

After Rhododendron come Kalmia and Camellia (for 1
have nothing to say of Stwartia, and Gordonia, and little
of rare, beautiful, white St. John’s-Wort-flowered Eucry-
phia pinnatifida). And the Kalmias are all failures here,
though once I had hopes, reading that the glorious
mountain Laurel occurs in heavy yellow loam as well as
in peat on its native mountains. But no; big latifolia
and charming little angustifolia dislike me equally ; and
hardly less, too, the rare, delightful miniature form,
angustifolia alpina, which I collected in the Rockies.
This is an absolutely prostrate trailer, woody and wiry,
narrow-leaved, with brilliantly glowing little cups of
crimson. I had great difficulty in getting even incom-
plete roots, and my plants have never done anything
more than survive, and even that is more than I can claim
for the majority of them. It loves damp alpine hollows,
in peaty places, and, to all possessors of peat, might well
prove a treasure.

Of Camellias, I have made but little out of alba plena
and Donckelaari, which are generally recommended for
outdoor culture. And reticulata, though I had it un-
OF SHRUBS, MOSTLY EVERGREEN 35

protected in the open through two winters, is really an
indoor plant—the most gorgeous, perhaps, of all solitary-
flowered shrubs; its broad, loosely built blooms being
larger, lovelier, richer, and more graceful, to my taste,
than those of even the largest, loveliest, richest Rose.
Its intense gentle carmine has a quality of luminosity
that I know in no other floral red, to the same degree ;
it seems to light up a room with its presence, and glows
like the steady heart of a fire. Even as the Rose is less
stodgy than the horrid, fat Camellias that Marguerite
Gauthier affected, even so are the blooms of reticulata
less stodgy than the regularity of the typical double Rose.
The Camellia’s one lack is fragrance ; otherwise its glory,
its tossing profusion of petal, its revealed core of golden
foam, make it the successful rival of any Rose that ever
bloomed.

The only scented Camellia is C. Thea—more famous
as the tea-plant. This is practically hopeless, I think,
for outdoor culture. I have gathered it at Nagasaki, as
a semi-established wild plant, drooping its sweet, delicate
bells modestly beneath those dark-green leaves to which
the world owes so incalculable a debt of health and
happiness. But for our gardens Camellia japonica and
Camellia Sasankwa stand pre-eminent. Sasankwa is a
quite small, frail shrub, throwing up one slender bough
to five feet or so. In autumn, these boughs are bent
beneath the weight, along their course, of many large
flowers, in shape and size and colour exactly those of
Rosa canina, but having the artificial, waxy texture of
all the Camellias. But Sasankwa is an uncertain plant
in England, and has given much disappointment. Of an
imported batch all will start by thriving—then, sud-
denly, ninety-nine will obstinately, inexplicably die,
while the hundredth goes on prospering like a bay
tree. I give mine any rich soil, peaty or no, and trust
36 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

to luck. I have lost many, and succeeded with a
few, and never yet flowered one.

Camellia japonica will probably never reach, in Eng-
land, the huge, tree-like proportions it attains in Japan.
But it is an absolutely certain doer, almost anywhere,
perfectly hardy and requiring no sort of care or protec-
tion. It is more, of course, of a wild-wood tree than a
rock-garden shrub, but when well-developed, has a rare
magnificence, with its grey, smooth trunk, and its burden
of flame-like crimson flowers, single, golden-eyed, that
nestle amid the dark, glossy leafage. It is so one sees it
in the wood above the Shiba Temple-Tombs in Tokio,
and from the shade one looks down and notes how the
fierce sun beyond kindles each one of these fiery blossoms
to a ring of scarlet flame. For, in the type-form, the
blossoms, much harsher and hotter in colour, have the
same luminosity that you get in reticulata. I growa
white form, too, Yuki migiriima, Snow-circle, which is
one of the purest and loveliest things I have ever seen.
Camellia japonica does not carry the individual flowers
for very long, and their tendency to drop when touched
has made the plant unlucky in Japanese romance, as it is
thus credited with an analogy to decapitation and sudden
death.

Of the Daphnes I have already treated of the special
rock-garden species—cneorum, rupestris, and alpina. But
indica claims notice here, for its absolute, indestructible
hardiness. My plants hail from the Tokio Plain, and
have never quailed or blenched before the most awful
winters, though quite without protection. They grow on,
too, like weeds, in any soil, and I only trust they will one
day take it into their heads to flower as profusely as they
grow. The same rusticity could probably be proved of
Dauphini. Another valuable species or group is that
diversely named thing, Daphne fioniana, neapolitana,
OF SHRUBS, MOSTLY EVERGREEN 37

collina. Whether these are all names of one or of dis-
tinct sorts I dare not dispute. Let me call my plant
collina, and so praise it. It grows in any soil, quite
robustly, though sometimes a branch dies off for no clear
reason. It develops into a round bush of small, leaden,
evergreen foliage, three feet high or so, and each straight
shoot is capped, in June, by a head of deliciously-scented
rosy-pink flowers, like those of indica.

Daphne Genkwa is an outstanding, notable kind, very
rare in cultivation. It hails from China and Southern
Japan, and labours, consequently, under a reputation for
doubtful hardiness. As a matter of fact, | imported my
plants from the Tokio Plain, with the result that they
turn out able to stand anything in the way of weather.
A pot-plant, in the open, suffers far more, of course, from
frost, than does a plant whose roots are safely buried in
the ground, with only one surface to feel the cold. Last
winter a number of Japanese Plums, even, in pots, were
killed off by frost; not a single pot-plant of Daphne
Genkwa took any hurt. This plant, economically impor-
tant in the manufacture, I fancy, of paper, is a small,
very frail, straggling shrub, deciduous, with thin, velvety,
greyish leaves. The bark is soft, dark brown. The
flowers, born in few-flowered clusters before the leaves,
are larger than those of any other Daphne, and of a
very clear, beautiful, blue-purple, like those of a fine lilac.
Of Daphne striata, a close cousin of cneorum, and reported
a lime-lover, my imported plants turned out, after all, to
be mere collina; Daphne arbuscula is a very rare little
novelty, quite easy to do with, in peat, which seems to
me exactly like a minute form of cneorum with the
diminutiveness, but without the gorgeous blossom, of
rupestris.

With Laureola, Philippi, Sophiae—the dingy, greenish
yellowish Daphnes, no rock-garden need concern itself.
38 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

Remains only Daphne Mezercon, our sweet rare native.
In almost every cottage-garden in March you will see the
bare, leafless twigs of the Mezereon clothed along their
length with its big magenta flowers, armed with a
fragrance keen, sugared, bitter, curiously ominous of the
malevolent poison lurking in the whole plant, and con-
centrated in the glossy scarlet berries that succeed the
bloom. Though rather capricious, the Mezereon, in its
typical and its white form, is to be found all over Eng-
land, naturalised, even, in wood and coppice, while on
the upper Alpine meadows it abounds. There is only
one spot, in our islands, however, which claims to possess
it as undisputed native. Ling Ghyll is a narrow, deep
gully, cloven abruptly between the fells at the back of
Ingleborough. Its steep sides are clothed from top to
dim, wooded, water-haunted bottom, with bushes of the
Mezereon, which no external agency can well have
introduced to a spot so remote from man, so utterly
lonely in the wild heart of the hill country. Another
speciality of this strange, magical glen was Sazifraga
umbrosa, also claiming this for its only genuine station as
a wild plant in Great Britain. Alas, the London Pride
has disappeared for many years now; they say that
incursions from Giggleswick were fatal to it. But the
stubborn wood and fibre of the Daphnes will resist any-
thing short of pick-axe and dynamite. As for me, I
confess that I love this Daphne better in Ling Ghyll
than in my gardens, where its colour vexes me, and its
heady, evil fragrance troubles me with obscure terrors.
And now comes the lesser fry of flowering evergreens.
Let me not, though, rashly apply such an epithet to
Cistus, noble race, which, however, is not for the most
part enthusiastic about my garden. Let others, in hotter,
sunnier, sandy climes, run riot with crispifolius, salvifolius,
Sormosus, algarvensis, corbariensis, undulatus, ladaniferus,
OF SHRUBS, MOSTLY EVERGREEN 39

laurifolius. I envy those fortunate ones; even as I write
my brain is filled with the hot, poignant fragrance of a
Mediterranean cliff, flogged by the full glare of midday,
till all the sweet plants, all grey lavenders, all straggling
thymes, all odorous, gummy Cistuses pant in thrills of
vertiginous sweetness. Ah me— AABarors bd Kevdpador
yevoiwav!—if I may be forgiven this cri de cur, as
thought of Cistus calls me back to the sun-bruised incense
of the shrubs above the Madonetta. (‘ Du Grec! 6 ciel!
du Grec! Il sait du Grec, ma seur !”)

My only hardy Cistuses, as a matter of fact, are laurt-
folius, florentinus, undulatus and lusitanicus. And all these
are so easy to grow that I need say nothing of their
culture. (Of course no one will plant them in shade.)
Laurifolius is only less gorgeous in bloom than Jadani-
Jferus—big, snowy, profuse in blossom, though the flowers
soon fall. The whole plant, too, exhales a delicious
scent of violets, which simply haunts the air, and cannot
be emphasised by squeezing or breaking. J lorentinus is
a, white-flowered hybrid, attractive, but much less so than
either lawrifolius or lusitanicus, which latter is, to my
taste, the most beautiful of all. It is similar in growth
to laurifolius (both are bigger plants than undulatus and
florentinus—this last, the child, I rather fancy, of undulatus
and Jaurifolius), but rather frailer and more straggling.
The huge, fugacious flowers are snow white, but each of
the five petals is marked, at the base, with a round spot
of dark maroon.

It is a far cry from Cistus ladaniferus, laurifolius, lusi-
tanicus, several feet in height and bulk, to the minute
Rock-roses, with their countless, reckless display of
brilliant flowers in every shade, from white to crimson.
But these, too, are to be ranked with Cistus ; their easi-
ness, hardiness, commonness, make it as unnecessary to
recommend them as it is inevitable to grow them, in any
40 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

open place, over any sunny rock. Besides all the innumer-
able single and double varieties (Amabile is a double
ball of crimson scarlet, and there is a similar lemon globe
called Ball's Green) of vulgare, notably a copper-coloured
one from Mr. Wolley-Dod, and a beautiful big rose-pink
variety, I grow also purpureum and roseum, species so far
doubtful as far as the flower is concerned. ‘Then comes
umbellatum, tall, erect, wiry-leaved, with heads of snow-
white flowers. This is tender and miffy, though less so
than the, to me, impossible Tuberaria, so abundant by
the roadside over the hills from Cannes. But our own
most rare white-flowered native, Helianthemum polifolium,
from Brean Down (you see masses of it, too, on the rail-
way cuttings as you leave Dijon), is very valuable, and so
is the tiny grey bush of H. dunulatum, with its profusion
of small lemon blooms. And a special favourite of mine
is the too seldom seen H. oelandicum, which I collected
in the Oberland—a wee, frail thing, with little blossoms
of brilliant gold.

As for Helianthemum vulgare—type of all its kin—no
culture, in the sun, comes amiss to it, but there is one
cultural recommendation I should very strongly make to
every one who grows it. Cut it over hard, as soon as the
spring blossom is done. This causes the plant to break
anew, forming a neat round tuft; and has the further
advantage of securing a second season of bloom later on.
Not to mention that otherwise the Rock-rose grows leggy,
lanky, sickly, and ultimately moribund if left too long
to its own devices. The same advice I have already
given about Potentilla fruticosa, and it is, of course, of
the first importance in the case of all slender, tall-grow-
ing shrubs, from Lavandula vera to Boronia megastigma.

The same applies, too, to Eretca and Pernettya. Past
Pernetiya I slide, for though useful little berried heaths, as
it were, in the rock-garden, they have never made any
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OF SHRUBS, MOSTLY EVERGREEN 41

appeal to me. But no garden can be without the finer
varieties of Calluna (Hayes, of Grasmere, has a white
form so long and elegant in the spike as to suggest a
Spiraea japonica), and the various hardy species of Ereica
itself—carnea, mackayana (lovely, if impermanent as
this fleeting world of false desire)—Jusitanica, mediter-
ranea, ciliaris. This last is a rare, beautiful little native
from Dorset heaths, with heads of big brilliant bells.
Another is vagans, from Cornwall, with fine bushy spikes
of white. All these enjoy hot, sandy, peaty soils, and
have no marked love for me. Mediterranea, however,
thrives brilliantly, and blooms at the most improbable
times, while Jusitanica has now formed a great tall bush
of five feet high or so, which makes a delightful filmy
shelter for Epigaea repens. And of my heaths, the most
precious is the Irish Bell-Heather—Dabococia polifolia—
which you will see on either side of the road as you drive
across the wild land between Sligo and Galway, through
Connemara. This is a very easy-going plant, which
luxuriates with me, and even more in peatier corners of
England, with ovate leaves and long, loose spikes of very
large white or rosy-purple bells, carried on stems about
eight inches high, and precious, like Eretca carnea, in the
rock-garden, for its habit of blooming from early till late.
Under the shelter of EKretca, too, come such things as
Arbutus, Vaccinium, Arctostaphylos, these two last species
containing one or two useful little things for the peaty
rock-garden, which, besides possessing no dizzy degree of
charm, are too hostile to my garden to earn a more
exhaustive notice here.

The Gaultherias give us one big, ramping undergrowth
in G. shallon, a North American unworthy of a choice
place; and another most precious and elect of dwarfs in
tiny, rare G. trichophylla, which you must grow in peat,
among stones, at the bottom of a little hollow like a
42 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

sugar-bowl, if you want it to remain in health. Gaul-
theriw trichophylla is not so much remarkable for its
small inflorescence, its furry-looking branches, as for the
resulting fruits, which are ridiculously large, and of the
most brilliant blue, having the colour and the bloom
you see in those of Vitis vulpina. Indeed the fruits of the
Gaultheria are almost as large as those of a grape.

For the rock-garden, Mitraria, Fabiana, Fremontia,
Carpentaria are rather luxuries than necessities ; so, too,
are Choisya ternata, Perowskia, Parrotia, and many
another illustrious shrub which it is one’s delight to prove
hardy. The same, too, must be said of the Olearias,
gunniana, stellulata, macrodonta, nitida, and the ubiqui-
tous Haasti. But, at the base of a rock-wall one may
well grow Rosemary, and especially its delightful creep-
ing, rock-hugging variety; together with Ozothamnus
rosmarinifolius, so like Rosemary in its aromatic leaves, so
like Aster ereicoeides in its spikes of creamy blossom.
Another plant I eye tenderly is Jidictwm religiosum, from
Japan, an evergreen, with pale glossy green leaves,
delightfully fragrant if you squeeze them, and then,
nestling far down between the twigs, big pendulous
blossoms of a ghostly diaphanous white, vaguely recalling
those of Chimonanthus in design, and sweet with the
tense, bitter sweetness of orange peel. This appears to
be as hardy as it is rare and precious, though I have not
sufficient experience yet to say the same of the Pitto-
sporum, so glorious in great bushes of false orange-blossom
along the Italian Riviera. The Abelias, chinensis and
floribunda, are pretty, graceful rock-garden shrubs, sway-
ing heads of pink trumpets, undeniably delicate, though,
and untrustworthy.

Cotoneaster and Euonymus (though the mottled sea-
side Ewonymus is, I think, the plant I most dislike in the
world—unless it be the Aspidistra) give us at least two
OF SHRUBS, MOSTLY EVERGREEN 43,

priceless rock-work plants, in two new rarities, Euonymus
radicans, microscopically minute—like a woody, frailer
version of Helxine Soleirolii—trailing over the stones; and
Cotoneaster pyrenaica, which creeps rigidly down the rock,
a small-leaved, dense-leaved plant, firmly appressed to
soil or stone as it goes, after the delightful style of Veronica
chathamica, loveliest of cliff-hugging shrubs, quite hardy,
too; evergreen, with spikes of delicate soft blue blossoms
late in the season. Nor must I forget Cydonia Maulei,
the Rock-Garden Pyrus, a dainty, straggling shrub for
rock-work, with big flowers, scarlet with the sad scarlet
of stale blood, and round fertile quince-fruits. Another
wild quince is the Japanese 'loringo, Pyrus prostrata—
or Cydonia prostrata—a frank trailer, winding in and
out of grass or hedgerow in Japan, with flowers of a
healthier, richer crimson than those of Maulei. The
little rock-willows, too, trail firmly over the line of the
rocks. J have at times imported them accidentally, and
now they have made wide masses in many corners of the
garden. I believe mine to be alpina and herbacea; they
are particularly charming when their fluffy silver cater-
pillars emerge.

Of the Brooms to be cultivated there are many to be
treated of in their due place. Here I will only say that
Cytisus purpureus is a fine little shrub for rock-work,
with arches of lilac, rosy or white flowers according to the
varieties. It grows about two feet high, and spreads with
reasonable freedom.  Heuffelianus, rumelicus, nyssanus,
anxanticus are novelties from seed, to be proved, and not
yet showing signs of being thrilling; our own very rare
native, pilosus, is an invaluable, densely close trailer,
making a cascade of gold over the rocks. The commoner
tinctorius (I am herding Cytisus and Genista recklessly
under one name), with its double form, is pretty for a
rough corner; and sagvtialis, prostrate, epiphyllum-like
44, ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

in growth, producing yellow heads at the end of each
shoot, is good for any very hot, dry, rubbly bank where
nothing else will do. Genista andreana is the gold-and-
copper form of the common Broom, and is splendid up
at the back, together with Mr. T. Smith’s lovely new
hybrids in shades of rose and lemon and coral—T. Smith,
Firefly, Daisy Hill, and so on.

We come now to the Pines, Firs, Ivies. These hardly
bear cataloguing. Hedera minima is a charming, serried
wee ivy, quite stiff and stout, and very effective in the
rock-garden. As for the Firs—not to wander into such
debatable territory as Thuya and Retinospora—Abies
excelsa gives us a perfect miniature of itself in clanbra-
siliana. Pumila and pygmaea are other minute firs that
adorn and dignify an outstanding coign of the rock.
Retinospora obtusa, if I may beg the question, is also
good ; but the two finest things in this group, beyond all
cavil, are the mimic Cedrus atlantica which they call
Comte de Digon (or should it be Dijon?) and the rare
bewvronensis dwarf of the Scotch Fir—a perfect reproduc-
tion of the type, but never of more than a foot’s height
or so,—and indescribably alluring.

Of the Junipers, prostrata and hibernica are beyond
price—the one a trailer, the other erect, columnar.
Sanderiana is wonderful beyond the ordinary, though,
and so is pachyphiaea, a new introduction from Oregon.
Sanderiana is a little Japanese, making a round bush
about six inches high. All through the summer it is of
a glaucous pearly grey, and with winter deepens to a
metallic purple. Pachyphlaea promises to be much larger,
and already has more or less columnar varieties. Its dis-
tinguishing note is the clear and brilliant glaucousness of
its foliage, which is more clearly and conspicuously blue
than even Abies Parryi or Cedrus atlantica glauca. Nor,
apparently, is any miffiness or delicacy to be feared from
OF SHRUBS, MOSTLY EVERGREEN 45

it. While rare varietal forms like Comte de Dijon or
Pinus sylvestris beweronensis must have the choicest fore-
most places on the rocks—not that they are difficult, but
because they are rare (all these conifers are easy, thrifty
doers anywhere)—there are some true species which are
useful higher up. Pinus Cembra, stocky and so slow-
growing as to count as a dwarf, may be employed as a
wind-break. Pinus montana is a quite invaluable low-
growing, straggling, vigorous little tree, the mountain-
pine of the highest Alpine slopes, in whose bosky twilight
lurk Liliwm martagon and Aquilegia alpina. Learning
a lesson from this, I have planted mine up with Tulipa
gesneriana, and when their green dusk is starred with the
flames of the tulip the effect is of a rare beauty. Pinus
koraiensis is too uncommon as yet, and too little tried, to
be spoken of ; people who try Cryptomeria japonica are
almost as unwise as they who once revelled in Welling-
tonia ; and I have never succeeded in getting any live:
importations of the splendid tortured dwarf varieties that
spring in Japan from that most magnificent of magnified,
glorified Scotch Firs, Pinus massoniana. I tried to
import the umbrella-headed abortion, T’anyosho, only last
year, but my failure was so complete that I shall not
repeat the experiment. Finally, if any one wants a big
column of green darkness for a high point of some large
rock-work, and dares not try the Funeral Cypress, let him
remember, in the first place, that exquisite, lace-like
Cupressus torulosa is absolutely safe and hardy ; and, in
the second, if he wants a heavier, darker mass, that
Juniperus virginiana Schotti is absolutely and at all
points the living double of the great Funeral Cypress,
possessing for itself the advantage of being as hardy as a
Sycamore and as easy as a Privet.

As for the Bamboos, I have a lurking feeling that it
is unfitting to talk of these giant grasses as either ever-
46 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

greens or shrubs. In any case my remarks will take the
form of warnings to a great extent. I know no Bamboo
that can safely be trusted inside the rock-garden. Once
they start they are the most fearful of growers. Pyg-
maea is pretty and mild-looking, only a foot high or so,
but, when established, it eats up space like a motor,
seeming to engulf fresh pastures every hour. Ruscifolia
(I am not troubling here with the distinctions between
Phyllostachys, Arundinaria, and Bambusa) is even prettier
—smaller and neater, with dense little boughs feathered
with leaves like those of the Butcher’s Broom. So far as I
know it, this plant, though also a ramper, may be trusted,
as it does not increase so voraciously as pygmaea, and
can easily be kept in bounds. And it is certainly
most dainty, pretty, and attractive, as well in summer
as in winter. Bambusa quadrangularis has proved too
tender here, but a brilliant success among the smaller
kinds has been B. Veitchi. This is dwarf, and big leaved,
growing a foot or more in height—a miniature, roughly
speaking, of palmata. And round the edge of each
vivid green leaf there fades a clear rim of pure white, so
that a well-grown dense mass of this is a delight to see.
But Veitché will certainly prove a tyrant. It covers all
the Japanese Alps in a close jungle, and in England will
probably prove extremely valuable as a covert-plant,
as its hardiness is undoubted, and I have noticed in Japan
that its vigour always increased as it mounted towards
the high cold, while it flagged and died as you descended
from the hills.

Of the larger Bamboos, palmata is another plant for
general or covert use, a terrific grower when once started ;
with few and very large leaves to a growth. It thinks
nothing of shooting three or four yards underground, and
coming up, like Arethusa, in the most improbable places.
Away with all thought of it from the rock-garden.
OF SHRUBS, MOSTLY EVERGREEN AT

But nigra—tall, exquisitely frail and graceful—is surely
one of the loveliest things in the garden, growing into a
gradually increasing central mass, whence all the fairy-
like culms arch outwards, but never sending invading
shoots to conquer the territory far and wide. Henonis
is another gracious beauty, too, but my Henonis flowered
and died. Sono more of him. Bambusa Maximowiczii
is a compact, medium-sized plant at present, very plumy,
but stiff, in which I am inclined to have a certain amount
of confidence, though in charm he cannot hope to rival
the grassy elfin’grace of nigra. recta has been my
latest surprise. It seemed a neat, mild grower, whose
habit was a tuft, and whose height was about three or
four feet of stiff culms. What, then, was my amazement
when, last season, my Erectas, one and all, made
new growths three inches round or more, that went
sailing stiffly heavenward to eight or ‘ten feet, with
promise of corresponding increase again next season. As
this seems a perfectly safe and hardy Bamboo, it will
probably prove of very high value in the garden, more
especially as it forms a clump and does not run. As for
Metake, dear and gracious old friend, first of its race to
prove to us how ridiculous it was of us to be timid and
nervous about trying Bamboos in our climate—well,
Metake itself is a little too vigorous, despite its wonder-
ful beauty, to be admitted to the rock-garden. And
senanensis is too much of a new-comer to be prophesied
about yet, although already I think I can proclaim that
he is hardy and very graceful.

With regard to the culture of Bamboos, and recording
again my warning that for the rock-garden only rusci-
folia can be trusted on the rock-work, and only nigra
and erecta in bigger places, with only nigra, erecta and
Mazximowiczii in the bog, I can go on to say that the
sole requirement of the hardy Bamboos is a rich, cool,
48 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

deep soil, in which they by no means object to a good
deal of moisture if the drainage be good. Add to this
a sheltered glen or corner, where spiteful spring winds
cannot assault and hurt the young, upshooting growths,
and your Bamboos will grow as in Japan. They are,
indeed, damp-climate plants, and wild-garden plants,
essentially ; impatient of control, and far too glorious to
be broken in. Their charm is their high, imperious
grace. Group them up some glen in majestic clumps,
and you will have your reward. With me they thrive in
garden and in wood, but in the heavier rainfall of the
Lakes they develop tropically, and make great jungles
in the misty, steaming HimAlya climate at the northern
end of Windermere. Above all, though, let no one
think that by planting Bamboos in a dense, serried mass,
and making little wobbling walks between them with
blocks of white stone, you can produce anything in any
way fit to be called a Japanese Garden. In the real
Japanese garden the Bamboo hardly figures at all, if
ever, its whole growth and character being so alien to
the scheme required. And in no part of England,
remember, will there be any difficulty or danger about
cultivating the hardy Bamboos. They are as robust as
brambles, and their only fault is their excessive vigour.
Of course there are innumerable greenhouse kinds in China
and the Tropics. Of these, naturally, I make no men-
tion. Let us hope it is one of these that is the agent of
a certain peculiarly appalling Chinese torture.
RANUNCULACEAE 49

CHAPTER III

Ranunculaceae, Papaberaceae, Cruciferae

I am tired, I declare, of waiting for my herbaceous
Clematises to bloom. I had integrifolia and Fremonti
from seed, under promise of splendours to come; yet
though I have nursed them for years I have never seen a
bloom. recta, though, and the larger heracleaefolia
are fine, handsome herbaceous plants, leafy and large,
with abundance of flower-clusters, like masses of wee
blue Hyacinths. As for the large climbing species of
this notable race, they have no place in the rock-garden,
unless you have a vast space to cover, and trees for them
to make a jungle of. This is just where both my gardens
fall short, so that I have never, except in the ordinary
garden, been able to use beautiful things like Clematis
grata, Henryi, tangutica, Viticella, Jackmanni, and
lanuginosa, all of which should make a foaming back-
ground of white and gold and violet to the huge block-
built rockery that slopes up to a brow of coppice or
wood. However, if I lack Clematis, I have Atragene ;
and Atragene is to all practical purposes indistinguish-
able from Clematis. My plants of the American Atra-
gene verticillata are yet but young; the European Adpina,
however, gives me more and more delight every year. It
is a slight trailer, and I have found it, in seed, meandering
among the bushes in the Maritime Alps, just below the
level of the Primulas. In early summer it produces
D
50 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

blue or lilac flowers, large, cross-shaped, but very like a
Clematis, This dear little creeper has a splendid Albino
form; and both thrive easily on any sunny rockery (I
daresay they would thrive in shade quite as well) in any
cool, sound loam.

On the heels of Clematis must come Anemonopsis—in
flower so like Atragene, yet so different in every other
way. Anemonopsis macrophylla is a singularly beautiful
Japanese herbaceous perennial, throwing up great, hand-
some leaves, recalling those of a Cimicifuga, though the
whole plant is juicier and less tough. The flowers are
carried on tall, graceful stems, and are vaguely reminiscent
at once of Anemone and of Clematis—large, pale-purple
and white. Anemonopsis has a bad reputation, I gather,
in gardens, and I have suffered many things at his hands
ever since I saw him years ago, blooming gloriously at
Edge, and resolved that happen what might, I must and
would possess him in health. Many failures, however,
at last disgusted me, and when a final stock came to
hand I said I couldn’t be bothered to make any more
beds or fussments for such an ungrateful creature. He
must go out with other herbaceous stuff, to shift for himself
in a rich border of peaty loam fattened with manure. I
confess I thought that Anemonopsis would be much
annoyed, and sulk even worse than he had been in the
habit of sulking when care had been bestowed on him.
With the amazing contradictiousness of plants, however,
that Anemonopsis has simply taken possession of his
strip, and throws up tall sturdy shoots after the wildest
winters. He is a deep-rooter, and evidently will take
kindly to deep, nourishing soil. And, this granted, he
seems to ask for neither protection nor care of any kind.
(Latest news: this tale is much too rosy.)

As for the Christmas Roses, I don’t think I need tell
my experience of them. They are splendid people—
RANUNCULACEAE 51

always thrilling, even if they are not beautiful—and ‘all
they want is rich soil and to be left alone. Nothing
beats the snowy niger—such a preposterous paradox of a
name! But the bluish torquatus is attractive, indeed,
and so are the purple olympicus, the rose-red orientalis,
with its many varieties, the bright purple colchicus, the
native foctidus, like a fountain of pale-green foam, and,
I imagine—for I have never succeeded in getting it—
that marvellous plant, the true Zvidus, from Corsica,
which sounds like an enormous foetidus—a column of
spouting green spray. Lutews I have never had, and my
collection is not at all complete, worse luck ; but those I
do have give me a great wish to make it so, if ever I got
time to specialise on more than twenty specialities at once!

The Adonises are very much praised asa rule. There
are three or four yellow Alpine species — wolgensis,
pyrenaica, vernalis, amurensis. 'These are so alike to the
casual eye as to need little differentiation. They all
have very finely divided leaves, like green clouds, and
large yellow flowers. But the yellow is always spoiled,
for me, by a certain acridity of tone. It is just tainted
with green, and has a bitter, thin, unpleasant shade.
I have never been able to like any Adonis, I am sorry to
say, except amurensis as one saw it used in the Japanese
toy-gardens. These toy-gardens are a landscape in a
pan a foot across—some range of hills, or river-bed, or
promontory by the sea. Tiny, tiny plum-trees stand on
the margin, aglow with blossom, beside some ancient
water-worn boulder, and there are generally two or
three wee golden buds of Adonis amurensis coming out
of the ground like a dumpy little Aconite—just small
globes of gold, nothing more. In this stage it is a
treasure, but it loses all attraction for me as it grows large
and coarse, even as a slum-cat is delightful in the kitten-
stage, but erelong develops the full unattractiveness
52 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

of maturity. The Adonises are quite easy to cultivate,
but I rather hope, by now, that I have lost or parted
with all mine.

Paeonia and Delphinium, those very gorgeous persons,
are not, of course, suited to the small rock-garden. But
hard indeed must be the heart that can exclude them.
The species of Delphinium that I have grown are dictyo-
carpum, scopulorum, and tatsienense. Of these tatsien-
ense is so immeasurably the best, that I shall let the
others go without replacing them. Tatsienense grows
anywhere in the sun, is about a foot or eighteen inches
high, and produces clouds of bright blue flowers on
graceful branching stems. I have also wrestled with
cardinale and nudicaule, the two scarlet species. The
sun-loving, delicate Californian nudicaule has been an
utter failure here. Cardinale, also a Californian, seems a
better plant, but I cannot really do it justice until I
have given a good trial to the stout little seedlings that
I now have ready to go out. Of better-known species,
I will only say that the tall Hybrids are glorious for
high places on the rock-work, and that the dwarf,
Delphinium grandiflorum, has the largest flowers and the
most brilliantly splendid blue. The old Belladonna, too,
is among the best, small enough for the rock-garden,
bearing loose spires of big blossoms, tender in their
Cambridge blue as the sky of early morning. This
delight thrives anywhere, but very rarely seeds. There
is also a white form of grandiflorum and an exquisite
gentian-, or pale sky-coloured form, as there is also
of its twin, cashmerianum grandiflorum. And all are
perfectly easy to grow.

Paconia wittmaniana is a rarity, a herbaceous species
with big sulphur-yellow flowers, which, like all the

1 They throve robustly, and sent up stalwart spikes. And then the
slugs came and ate every one of them clean down to the ground.
RANUNCULACEAE 53

Paeonies, only wants rich soil and neglect.  Witt-
maniana, however, differs from the others in sometimes
dying off inexplicably. Whitleyi major is the loveliest
herbaceous plant I know, as Moutan is the finest—well,
shrub, one must call it. Of course I mean the single IWhit-
leyi; the double is beautiful, but of no account in the
rock-garden. The single Whitleyt has flowers like a
huge water-lily of pure white silk, and the heart of it is a
tassel of fine gold. No one ever imagined a lovelier thing.

As for the wild red Paeonies, I do not think very many
of them are worth troubling about. ‘There are so many
single hybrids now; I have just established, in their
second year, a big batch of single herbaceous Paeonies
from Japan, and I expect to see marvels this year. The
species, lobata, Russi, peregrina, officinalis corallina (who
lives on the Steep Holmes Islet in the Severn Sea,
among the rocks, but basely suspected by some of being
an alien) tend to be leafy in growth, small in flower, and
with a tiresome shade of lilac or magenta in their reds.
You have to be careful about this always in buying
Paeonies. Only buy by sight, if possible. Far different
is it with the white species. ‘The Japanese obovata,
whose pearl-white goblets I remember above Shoji, is a
jewel quite outside any condemnation; as are albiflora
and edulis and the precious Hmodi ; while there is even
a certain rare variety of the magenta lobata called ‘Sun-
beam,’ which has flowers of a splendid luminous scarlet.

As for the Yellow Tree-Paeony—Paeonia lutea—well,
I am waiting till that drops a little in price. Besides,
though thrillingly exciting, I don’t gather that lutea
compares in beauty with Moutan or albiflora. Its flower
seems rather small for the leaf, and recalls to me a bloom
of Nuphar advena stuck fraudulently on a Paeony-plant.
As for culture, all the species are alike: give them deep
soil, a more or less shady place, and let them alone.
54 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

Close cousins to Anemone are the Thalictrums, of
which our limestone fells abound with one, minus, in
foliage hardly less graceful than the better-known
adiantifolium, and gracious, in June, with tall, airy
showers of yellowish tiny tassels. You will see it waving
from the inaccessible cliffs of Sulber and Gordale; nor
does it offer any sort of difficulty to the gardener. Our
other interesting native (flavum is rather a coarse, gawky
thing) is microscopic Thalictrum alpinum from Upper
Teesdale, a wee, delicate, inconspicuous high-alpine which
you may cultivate carefully in a select peaty corner.
Anemonoeides is a real beauty, with big Anemone-like
white flowers, which, I don’t know why, has never yet
done much with me. It has a good reputation, too;
perhaps the fault is mine for having only tried it in the
Old Garden. Some day I will attempt it again in the
new one. Light soil, well drained, in a sheltered choice
corner, is recommended for this. Of the larger sorts I
have a great love for petaloideum (and hope great things
of polygamum and foliolosum and chelidoniifolium, re-
ported splendid). Petaloidewm has beautiful glaucous
grey leaves, which unfold at first rather like those of
Ranunculus rutaefolius, and then, on stems about a foot
high or more, heads of large cream-white flowers, rather
like those of the Traveller’s Joy on a lessened scale.

This plant likes any border soil. But the most gener-
ally valuable for large-scale gardening is unquestionably
Thalictrum aquilegifolium. So splendid is this, and alto-
gether admirable, that I cannot restrain my enthusiasm
for it until I come to the greater bog-plants. One finds
T.. aquilegifolium in damp alpine meadows all Switzerland
over, and in cultivation it takes very kindly indeed to any
cool deep loam, forming, in time, enormous clumpsthat need
no care. The leaves are very large, pale green, magnifi-
cent as so many broad spreading plumes of a magnified
PAPAVERACEAE 55

Adiantum farleyense ; the flower-stems reach to five feet
or more at their best, and carry far on down the season a
wide foaming mass of white blossom, which, in one form,
is pale purple. No plant is handsomer for the big bog-
garden, or the cool border. Delavayi is a novelty, and a
little uncertain so far. It seems everything that it should
be, and in growth is like a dense robust minus, with
leaves of a metallic bronzy grey. The abundant flowers
are of a very pretty, soft mauve, and large enough to
make quite a feature.

Lsopyrum thalictroeides is a wee cousin of the Thalic-
trums, very close to them, and of perfectly easy cultivation
in light loose soil, rather poor than rich. The plant is
quite small and graceful, with the fine, dainty greyish-
green leaves of its kind, and three or four charming little
white flowers carried on short foot-stalks, very early in
the season. It is a Swiss plant, but not, I fancy, very
common. I have never seen it wild, and believe it to be
rare—at all events in Western Switzerland and the Ober-
land.

This, I think, covers nearly all the Ranunculacez that
are valuable in the rock-garden. The little false Aconite
of early spring is too common, and the big true Aconites
too large and too wicked to find any place in the rock-
garden. One need not look twice at any Monkshood to
see that he is an evil, poisonous person. So away with
them all, unless you admit the beautiful white Levantine
album, or the new twining volubile.

Sanguinaria canadensis, with its variety called major,
is so like a cousin of the Buttercups and Anemones that
he must certainly come next. He occupies a certain peaty
bed in the Old Garden underneath my big bushes of
Magnolia Kobus and Magnolia Watsoni. The Canadian
Bloodroot is so called because he bleeds. When you dig
up his fleshy tubers they ooze gore in a most unpleasant
56 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

way. And their bleeding is a symptom of annoyance too,
for Sanguinaria hates being moved and cut about and
worried. Give him a quiet corner under some deciduous
tree, and he will increase perpetually and multiply, send-
ing up early in April his pretty rounded leaves, veined, and
glaucous grey (they are, I do believe, the prettiest of all
leaves in nature; like a vine’s, but rounder, more regular,
and smooth), and then, even before they are unfolded,
expanding his large snowy flowers, like nothing so much
as a pure white Celandine on a stalk about six or eight
inches high.

Of the other Poppyworts I have little experience.
The Big Celandine is a weed in the upper valley of my
Old Garden; and the Jeffersonias, Stylophorums, and
Chelidoniums, or whatever you like to call them, have
never hitherto appealed to me very strongly, though I
weakened towards Stylophorum japonicum when I saw
him blooming abundantly with Anemone trifolia in the
mountain copses on the way up from Nikko to Nantai-
San. But even Stylophorum japonicum is, after all, only
a gloritied Chelidonium majus, brilliant in flower, but rather
plebeian in growth. As for that common Japanese weed,
the gigantic plume-Poppy Bocconia cordata—well, it is a
weed here, too—and, for all its stately splendour, I
regret ever having admitted it, or any of its kind.

But the essential glory of the Poppy family is Meco-
nopsis, a race scattered most of the world over, but con-
centrating its efforts in the Himalya. Our own country
has one, though, the delightful little Welsh Poppy,
which no one can be stern enough to keep out of the
rock-garden, although he knows how soon he will deplore
his laxity. For the Welsh Poppy is a dreadful weed ;
but then he is so very fascinating, and when the worst
comes to the worst, he is an easy plant to cope with. You
can grub him up fairly easily ; and, however thick your
PAPAVERACEAE 57

jungle of Meconopsis cambrica, it never gives you the
heart-breaking trouble of one single runner of Gout-weed
or Pig-nut—may their names for ever be accursed !
Meconopsis cambrica has a soft orange-coloured form, too,
whose colour is singularly rare and beautiful; and, be-
sides, he stands among the few Alpine plants possessing
an indispensable double variety. I detest doubles as a
rule, but in candour I must own that the double yellow
Welsh Poppy is a fine thing; as for the double fire-
coloured form, well, there is nothing to beat the ferocious
splendour of it anywhere in the garden, loose puffs of
flower, shading from clear yellow to the most furious ver-
milion orange, that is Meconopsis cambrica aurantiaca plena,
a plant so splendid as to make it worth every one’s while to
learn his truly awe-inspiring list of names. And, add to
all this, that these varieties of the Welsh Poppy seed—at
least here—abundantly, come almost always faithful to
their parents, and thrive no whit less hilariously than the
common ancestor, except, indeed, that they make stouter
bushes, and blossom in far greater profusion, their blooms
continuing right through the summer, with a second
burst in autumn.

Meconopsis aculeata is the good wine that needs no
bush to those that have seen him at Kew. I doubt if
anything more beautiful exists anywhere, or can exist.
The leaves are handsome, cordate, more or less five-lobed,
brownish with hairs, and long prickle-like bristles. The
flowers are carried in a pyramid, perhaps a foot high, and
are large, more or less nodding, and, at the best, of an
iridescent blue-violet, glistening like silk. The plant is
a North-West Indian, and all these Himalyan and
mountain species are rather bad customers to tackle. It
is said that they inhabit the mist-zone of the ranges, and
therefore enjoy conditions extraordinarily difficult to
reproduce in England.
58 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

Angustifolia, simplicifolia, bella, grandis, racemosa,
horridula, integrifolia, punicea, compose a grand total of
beauty very hard to beat, and also, I fear, rather hard to
enjoy. Very quick drainage, good deep, deep compost,—
rough, peaty, gritty, sandy, yet rich,—with an exposure
neither bleak nor overshadowed, make up my prescription
for these gorgeous exotic Poppies. Thriving in such
conditions I have young plants of racemosa (which
thrives anyhow, in ordinary soil), aculeata, grandis,
simplicifolia, and integrifolia. Of course, I dare not
claim success until they have flowered. And then, I
greatly fear me, they will probably die. For these plants
are generally biennials, or, at least, have a tendency to be
monocarpous, that is, to die as soon as they have safely
flowered and set seed. Nor is seed, as a rule, very certain
to fill and be fruitful; nor, even so, is it particularly
easy to raise and rear. The easiest to deal with, pro-
bably, is integrifolia, whose enormous lemon-coloured
globes have made the sensation of the Temple Show for
two years past. Punicea, to my taste, though not to
most people’s, is even more attractive, with its pendulous,
great ragged-looking blooms of a deep, obscure scarlet.
It is more possibly perennial than integrifolia, which is
frankly monocarpous, but seeds very fairly well.

As for simplcifolia—there, indeed, is all my hope
stored. It is said to be the counterpart of integrifolia,
but with flowers of a soft, clear blue. Ask what our
Expedition thought of it when first they sighted Holy
Lhasa and the Golden Mountain of the Potala, with the
clear blue of heaven above, and the clear blue of Meco-
nopsis simplicifolia filling all the foreground. My young
plants seem strong in growth, and are now in bud, but
what frightens me is the uncertain colouring of these
blue Poppies. Wallichii, besides its azure glories, pro-
duces seedlings of every dull shade of brown and mauve;
PAPAVERACEAE 59

the same holds good of bella, aculeata, simplicifolia, and
probably of all. Horriduda and racemosa are supposed
forms of one plant, and rumour threatens that their big
purple flowers also fluctuate to dowdy lilacs.

Grandis is only a promise, so far; it looks mighty fine
and stalwart; Heaven send its beauty be in proportion to
its vigour! But sad experience teaches gardeners that
vigour, in a new plant, or fertility of germination in seed,
spells ugliness—things that are really worshipful are too
apt to be slow to springing and faint in growth. And it
will be well to mention here that Meconopsis petiolata is
declared a synonym of Stylophorum diphyllum by Nicholson,
while Meconopsis heterophylla is a tall Californian annual
with very pretty orange-tawuy flowers, black-spotted at
their base, that smell like Lily of the Valley. Meconopsis
nepalensis is a biennial or monocarpous species, carrying
very tall spikes of nodding pale yellow flowers high above
lovely great fluffy rosettes. It is among the less uncom-
mon species, and has never taken my affection captive,
probably because it is so like, but so inferior to, its
superb cousin Meconopsis Waillichit, the best known of
all the exotic species. Meconopsis Wallichii carries spikes
similar in foliage, growth, and size to those of nepalensis,
but the flowers are, or ought to be, of a pale, bright,
silky blue. I say ‘ought to be,’ for the colour varies
dreadfully, and seedlings of one batch will yield, as I
have said, besides the celestial tones, most horrid lilacs,
brownish purples, faded or dingy shades unworthy of
admittance to the garden. At Kew, in the peaty bog-
pits, Wallich’s Poppy makes a gorgeous show, but here,
of course, no such wet treatment is necessary; any cool
peaty corner, in sun or shade, does equally well. Having
flowered, the plant dies, and there is, first of all, the
anxiety of ascertaining whether it has set any sound seed ;
then the trouble of raising it; then the long waiting
60 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

period before you see whether your batch has borne you
good, pure colours or no. But no trouble is too great to
be taken with a Meconopsis.

And at this point, with however little regard for
proper order, I am going to talk of a genuine Poppy,
which is in aspect exactly like a Meconopsis. Papaver
tauricola is a very handsome Levantine, whose proper
place is here, rather than with his closer kin, whose name
he shares. He is incredibly like Meconopsis Waillichii in
habit, and bears a tall fountain of orange-salmon flowers,
no less beautiful than remarkable. I fear he is mono-
carpous, but he is certainly hardy, for he has sailed
through the winter on a perfectly unprotected piece of
the rock-work, and is now making broader rosettes than
ever, and freely emitting lateral growths, which encourage
a faint, foolish hope that he may be perennial.

Cathcartia villosa is a humble, but near cousin of
Meconopsis, with very silky vine-shaped leaves and large
golden flowers. It only grows about a foot high, and
has most unexpectedly, I confess, proved its hardiness by
surviving the winter as heartily as any native. One gets
into the way of expecting Sikkim-Himdélyan things to
be capricious and miffy. The other Cathcartia, lyrata,
I have never grown, my seed always having proved
sterile.

Of the Fumitories, I cannot help loving our native or
naturalised weed, Corydalis lutea, with its dainty maiden-
hair-like leaves, and its persistent, cheerful, yellow flowers.
The Yellow Fumitory runs about old walls in England,
and is quite delightful somewhere at the base of the rock-
work, confined to a nook and well out of the way of
doing harm. For, of course, it is an intrusive pest if you
give it any room near choice things. Its cream-white
variety seems rather rare, and is very attractive indeed.
Corydalis solida I grow, but not with enthusiasm, on
CRUCIFERAE 61

either hand; the prettiest Fumitory I ever saw in my
life still dwells among the dead leaves round a Korean
monastery high on a hillside, buried in forests (the only
forests now left in Korea, for the pious monks have
respected what the foolish peasants have everywhere else
destroyed), Does any reader know this Corydalis, I
wonder? In early March it gleamed here and there
amid the fallen leaves—the daintiest little flower, with
fairy-like, frail foliage, and a few rather large blossoms of
a delicious violet. It has a small bulbous root, but all
my efforts to bring it back into cultivation proved vain.

The vast Natural Order of the Cross-bearers evidently
thinks that in providing us with all our important vege-
tables it has done quite enough for humanity. For few
other Natural Orders are horticulturally so barren of
charm; among the Cruciferae that one can use in the
rock-garden—or, for that matter, in any other flower-
garden either—there are astonishingly few of any great
merit (such as Aubrietia, Aethionema, and Ionopsidion),
and but few of any merit at all. The race is, generally
speaking, an open-ground one, found most abundantly in
the Old World, and such Cross-bearers as we like to use
are generally quite easy of culture.

The greatest and most important group is that of the
Aubrietias, plants of the very first rank for any sunny,
light, and not too choice corner of the garden. I have
them all over the place as edgings to the stone-work,
where they look lovely in their time—so many cushions
or torrents of rose, carmine, or violet. By now the
species have been swamped with garden-raised varieties,
and these, in turn, occur perpetually in almost every
batch of seedlings, so that every one will do well to buy
packets of some good Aubrietia-seed and select their
strain. Moerheimi is an especial pet of my own, and we
have one called Craven Gem, which has the great merit
62 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

of carrying its fine purple spikes long after all the other
Aubrietias are over. As for Fire King, Dr. Mules,
Pritchard’s Al, Purple Robe, and the many other named
forms, they are glorious in colour, but not invariably nor
everywhere, quite so robust in character as the types, I
think ; or, perhaps, it is that some of them have a rather
lax, straggling habit. Speaking generally, the Aubrie-
tias will bear anything in the way of culture except
shade and excessive moisture.

The Arabises, I must frankly confess, I almost detest.
To me they seem rank, coarse, evil-smelling, obstreperous
creatures. I am now describing Arabis albida and its
varieties, but no Arabis, think I, has any great beauty.
No form of albida, not even the double one, is really
admissible to any small rock-garden ; and, even in a large
one, there are so many better things to fill rough corners
with, that there is no need to waste space on an
Arabis. The Alpine tufted species are less tiresome,
only because less rampageous. Stwrii is an uninvited
guest here, and is still welcome. He came in something
else, and now has made himself quite at home, a neat-
habited rosetty thing, with heads of white blossom.
Arabis lucida variegata is useful too, with shiny rosettes
very neatly variegated with yellow. And I also grow a
pretty creature whose name is usually made a battlefield,
some people calling it Billiardierti rosea (the name I
bought it under) and others aubrietioeides. This last
name exactly describes it; it has erect spikes of big pale
pink flowers like an Awbrietia, and also the same woolly
leaves. It very much dislikes damp, and, on the whole,
is miffy. As this is the case, why be bothered about
growing what is, to all intents and purposes, a not con-
spicuously beautiful Awbrietia, with a far worse constitu-
tion than any Aubrietia ever raised ?

Alyssum gives us the precious, little, honey-scented,
 

EDRAIANTHUS PUMILIO AND SAXIFRAGA CAESIA IN THE OLD MORAINE.
CRUCIFERAE 63

white-flowered native annual 4. maritimum, now called
Koeniga, 'Then there are montanum and alpestre, plants
of the Southern Alps, prostrate and more or less grey-
leaved, with heads of blossom that have a certain acrid,
mean tone in their yellows. They have double varieties
which are fairly pretty. Alyssuwm gemonense is a seed-
ling here, and proves the best of all in colour—a really
pure, gentle yellow; Shivereckia podolica, otherwise known
as Alyssum podolicum, is rather an uninteresting, white-
flowered plant, and both species seem very fertile and
robust. Alyssum saxatile is a well-known plant, and
really invaluable with its dense masses of grey foliage,
quite hidden by the astonishing abundance of its yellow
flowers. The variety ciérinwm is paler in colour and
even more attractive. The double form and the varie-
gated form move no emotion in me. My own favourite
in the family is the rather rare and delicate little Alyssum
idaeum, the only one of its race I know that can be used,
or deserves to be used, in any choice place on the rock-
work. Jdaewm is a small, prostrate species, with tiny
roundish leaves in pairs down its stem. And it is the
leaves that make the plant so charming, for they are
absolutely silver—not white exactly, not glaucous, but
true silver. All the Alyssums, I believe, without excep-
tion, are southerners, and all want dry light spots in full
sun. Their only constitutional dislike is for excessive
moisture. And this may be made a rule for all the Cross-
bearers that one is ever likely to let into the garden.

The Drabas have some reputation, and are generally
advertised in rosy terms. I must be honest and own
that I don’t really like any of them. They are all neat-
habited, true rock-plants, and no doubt very useful, but
I can never feel any enthusiasm for them. Their flowers
are mean and ragged in shape, a dullish white, or sharp,
bitter yellow. I grow aeizoeides, scabra, and olympica
64 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

hetericoma. The other species all bear a very strong
family resemblance to these, and none of them have any
radiant loveliness, though I make one exception in favour
of the rare dicranoeides, who has well-built, solid little
flowers of a soft, pure yellow. He is thriving in the
moraine, of which he is well worthy; and as for the
others, their only need is a sunny crevice. The one
species that does sound exciting is Draba violacea, a deep
purple-flowered plant from the Quito Andes.

There are a few other dwarf Crucifers of moderate
merit. Hutchinsia alpina is a common, pretty little
thing, which soon, if you are not careful, eats you out of
house and home, by seeding itself everywhere. Not to
mention that the plant itself runs about and ramps in a
deceptively modest way, which conceals its depredations
till too late, when you suddenly find a dying sprout of
Androsace villosa gasping piteously at you out of a dense
impracticable jungle of Hutchinsia. But the invader is
such a pleasant-looking, hearty thing that I never have
the heart to wage internecine war upon him. I have not
admitted him to the New Garden, though.

Cochlearia alpina is a dwarf plant, with glossy, heart-
shaped leaves in a neat rosette, and white flowers, which
occurs rarely in England, at high elevations, and haunts
the western face of Ingleborough. It is fairly pretty for
the garden, but tends to grow rank, and revert to its
type. Parrya Menziesi, from the Rockies, I have only
just got. It is a near cousin of Aubrietia, with purple
flowers, that promises to be charming. Megacarpaea
polyandra is a rare, tall plant, of which I have one
stout seedling who is now reappearing for the second
season. I don’t know what he will be like, except that
he is bound to be robustious and big. Heaven send he
bear no resemblance to my pet dislikes—the Honesties
and single Rockets!
CRUCIFERAE 65

Iberis is another important race of Crucifers—some of
them dwarf, and all, to my mind, spoilt by the tone of
their whites, which are either dingy or very hard. Iberis
correaefolia and Iberis Snowflake are far and away the
best for general purposes, and their flowers are clean and
pure, though rather cold in tone. Correaefolia is a huge,
obtrusive grower, but Snowflake and pinnatu, another
good plant, make dignified, pleasant little bushes about a
foot high, flowering with splendid generosity. Jberis
jucunda is a synonym of Aethionema coridifolium, which
leaves Iberis petraea alone to represent the rock-section of
Iberis. Petraea is a very dwarf plant, trailing little
dark boughs along the ground, and bearing a profusion
of white flowers not as brilliant, alas! as some, though
extremely pretty. Nicholson gives it as a form of Iberis
tenoreana from South Europe. It is a true high-
Alpine—minute, neat, and supposed to be rather difficult
by some people. I have never had any sort of bother
with it here, nor, beyond a corner to itself and decent
soil to grow in, have I ever given it any attention or
coddling. Of the larger sorts, I think one called Little
Gem is the best—even neater than SnowMake—forming
robust round balls which, in their time, are literally
hidden by the abundance of blossom. Tenoreana, sem-
pervirens, and gibraltarica are none of them trustworthy
in my climate.

The Aethionemas are certainly the most brilliant of
the Cross-bearers after Aubrietia. ‘They are southerners,
coming, for the most part, from the Alps along the
Mediterranean, where they drop out of sun-baked ledges
in a profusion of rich colour. For, almost alone of their
race, they have flowers in varying warm shades of pink ;
whereas the utmost that the generality of Crucifers can
do in the way of effect is pale purple, their attempts at
red tones being apt to turn out rather weak lilacs and

E
66 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

magentas. But the Aethionemas are really bright and
lovely in their flowers, while their leaves are, for the
most part, of a glaucous blue, which makes a dainty con-
trast. Their habit is that of wiry, rather untidy little
flopping bushes, carrying goodly spikes of bloom along
the end of every twig. A strong generic likeness holds
them all together, and their requirements are all the
same, although there are now many recognised and a few
unrecognised species.

I grow Aethionemas under the following names :—
grandifiorum, coridifolium, thomasianum (a rare annual,
quaint, but not very pretty) diastrophis, creticum, ar-
menum, iberideum, and persicum. Grandiflorum is far
and away the best of the bigger species, and armenum, I
think, of the smaller. As for jucundum, that also I seem
to be growing well, and so far, in spite of Nicholson,
it looks a different thing from coridifolium (if, indeed,
Aethionema jucundum be not yet another synonym for
Iberis jucunda, which is declared identical with Aethionema
coridifolium!) But, as a matter of fact, there is a great deal
of confusion among the Aethionemas, and nurserymen are
far too careless about the naming of the stuff they send out.

Against the whole race must be set the disadvantage
that their hardiness is not absolutely above suspicion.
A cold winter will not do them much harm, but a wet one
kills them dead with me, unless they are planted high up
on an exposed point, with very quick, perfect drainage.
Grandiflorum, I think, is the only species which I can
pronounce perfectly faithful and trustworthy. Damp
winters have at one time or another forced me to replace
all the others; and last winter killed me off armenum,
which I loved. It made a little furry-looking grey bush,
out of a cranny; and I thought it was safe. But no, the
winds blew and the rain came down, and Aethionema
armenum departed from such a soaking world. All the
CRUCIFERAE 67

species, then, want a dry, hot crevice—at least in such a
climate as mine—and are supposed to have a love of
limestone, though I have never found them exacting as
to soil. And if they grow too straggly, or have dead-
looking boughs, the whole plant should be snipped hard
back, like a Box, and then it will make a neat mass again.

The Wall-flowers have given me a great deal of dis-
appointment. Erysimum pachycarpum I liked, and its
deep orange flowers rejoiced me. But then it turned out
either miffy or biennial or both, so that I think I no
longer possess it. Ochroleuwcum—whose synonyms are
lanceolatum and Cheiranthus —I got seed of, which
germinated so freely that now it is the burden of my
life. It makes a good border-edging plant, with hard
cutting, as it forms neat lumps of a bright darkling
green, with thousands of fragrant large lemon-yellow
flowers. But it is too rank for the choice rock-garden.
Then, fired by a most wonderful coppery-orange illustra-
tion, Limported Erysimum comatum from Servia at vast
expense. The habit of the plants, very long, narrow
leaves in a fine rosette, is lovely, but those flowers that
should have been so brilliant, turned out ragged in shape
and substance, and of a pale quite uninteresting citron
yellow. However, the plant is as robust as such undesir-
able aliens frequently are. Of the dwarfs Erysimum
pumilum and Erysimum petrowskianum, I have a better
tale: they are very wee, delicate, and pretty, well worth
a little extra trouble in the way of a choice corner.
Purpureum, too, is a real gem to do with—quite small,
with large flowers of a soft, sad purple, attractive and
effective. As for T'chihatchewia isatidea, which Mr. Robin-
son’s (or M. Leichtlin’s) flaming tale sent all the world in
quest of, I greatly fear he praised it prematurely: it proves
a shocking miff and mimp, querulous, monocarpous, and
no prettier than Iberidella.
68 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

CHAPTER IV

A Collecting Day abobe Arolla

Ir is always with a sense of approaching the most boundless
botanical possibilities that one penetrates into the moun-
tain valleys southward of the Rhone. For there, high in
each secluded glen, dwell species that scorn the crowded
slopes of the Oberland. In the Saasthal, in the upper-
most. screes, lives Campanula excisa; in the Turtmann
Thal Linnaea borealis meanders through the mosses of the
woodland; in the Val de Bagne Saxifraga diapensiocides
huddles passionately into the inexorable sun-baked_preci-
pices of the Pierre 4 Voir. And. with these specialities
grow also all the commoner glories of the Alps, so that,
for one ambitious to collect in the hills, and unable to go
so far afield as the Tyrol, the mountains of North Italy,
St. Martin Vesubie, or that gardener’s Eden the Col de
Lautaret, no more profitable advice can be given than
that they should put money in their purse and fare hope-
ful forth to Saas-Fée, Meiden, or Arolla.

At Arolla, indeed, I had my first experience of these
tributary valleys of the Rhone. For the wanderer’s
guidance I may mention that opposite each notch in the
vast mountains overhead that wall in the bed of the
Rhone three thousand feet and more beneath, there sits
in the flat lands over which the great river flows, a little
town, with a station on the railway. Thus, immeasurably
far above the tiny hamlet of Turtmann hangs the opening
A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA 69

of the ‘lurtmann ‘hal, and Sion, Sierre, Martigny, each
corresponds with the gap that opens up towards the
terrific snows above. By false guidance, however, I
alighted one steaming afternoon at the wrong station,
and had two hours to wait before a train would take me
back to Sierre, whence, it appeared, you climb dizzily up
the rampart of the mountains until you come into the
Val d’Hermance, and so, past Evolena, to Arolla.

Few situations of life can possibly be more overpower-
ing than the valley of the Rhone on a hot afternoon in July.
It is so very large, so very flat, so very hot—and, above all,
it is so straitly bounded, in front and behind, by so
crushing, so annihilating a wall of mountains, which in
their turn—oh horror!—are divined, even from the depths,
not to be themselves the pinnacles of the world’s roof that
they appear, but mere subordinate pedestals to the real
snow region above, whose awful teeth appear here and
there as one raises one’s eyes to the distances overhead.
The first part of the journey from Sierre, however, is
made luxuriously by carriage, and it is wonderful in what
serene majesty the mountains open up before one as one
goes, no longer made terrific by personal fatigue. For, in
a carriage, somehow, one loses that appalling sense of utter
personal insignificance, minuteness, nonentity, that always
paralyses me when first I set my lonely feet on the austere
territory of the hills. In a carriage—and a carriage for
which one has to pay—one feels once more in comfortable
relations with the world into which one has been born
and bred, the world of amenities, humanities, personal
importance, where one’s mortal personality has its place,
and where the gaunt enormous hills are not actors in a
fearful superhuman drama, but a mere painted mise en
scéne, a pleasing background to the human comedy.

In long loops, curling and curling upon each other
like the rings of a vast python, the white road mounts
70 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

over pleasant slopes of shelving vineyard, orchard, corn-
strip, towards the upper valley. Here and there amid
the golden stubble gleams the profound velvety sapphire
of Delphinium Ajacis, a rare cornfield weed in England,
parent of our multicoloured, lovely annual Larkspurs,
and one of the consecrated plants which have their name
from sad memories of strength and beauty vanished long
ago, for whose disappearance the tears of earth are shed
eternally—for Aias, for Adonis, for Hyacinth. Sheer
below us, far below, lies the valley of the Rhone—the
broad river looking ridiculous and undignified in such a
bird’s-eye view, with its worm-like wanderings, the mapped
spaces of its meadows, its fringe of toy poplars, its punctua-
tion of little toy villages, each with a toy church perking
in the midst. Away to the left and passing out of sight,
the depths are blocked by the fairy palaces and temples
of Sion on its crags; and as one mounts higher, so does
the opposite barrier of mountains grow every minute more
high and wide and awful, broadening and swelling at each
step, as the eye, dazed by their prodigious mass, follows
the line of their development till it ceases in the snowy
spires away towards the St. Gothard.

And from this height one feels the double influence of
the two colour schemes that fill the Alps. Far away
below, the valley of the Rhone lies dreaming in gold and
golden green, a soft territory of sleep, with the sleepy
blue thread of the river running through. Everywhere
as one looks down, there is green and the kindred tones
of green, while the depths of the air themselves are swim-
ming with a dust of infinitesimal gold in the sunlight.
And then above, abruptly, begins the dominance of blue.
Long slopes of pale cobalt, soft indigo falls of forest, then
the high naked sweep of sapphire, fading into distance
after distance of serrated colour, far up against the gentle
azure of the sky, across which, in the rosy haze, huge
A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA 71

curling ranges of cloud go soaring in shades of coral, ochre,
amber. Here and there in front of their denser volumes,
the pinnacles of the mountains are violet, scarred on this
side and that with the rich white of distant snow, while
the peaks round the St. Gothard reverse the process and
are all of warm, rosy ivory, set with irregular jewelled
ridges of amethyst, against the faint pink and purple of
the thunderous cloud-masses behind them, a score of miles
away. And the whole prospect, beautiful beyond our
poor mortal comprehension, is on so vast a scale of
grandeur, so inhumanly immense, so contemptuous of
such dear human details as roads, towns, railways, that
every time one meets it at a turn in the loop one gasps
anew with the shock, as under a sudden deluge of icy
water.

But at last the shoulder of the hill is turned, and we
say farewell to the valley of the Rhone. Now the road
continues directly up the Val d’Hermance—for we are
here, by kindly fate, still in French-speaking Switzerland.

To describe the vein-system of the Swiss waters one
must adopt the most severely scientific terms. In fact
the venation of the Swiss rivers is perfectly pinnatifid—
at least, I trust, I am right, as well as impressive, in so
explaining it. In milder words, the arrangement of
valleys is as follows: there is, first of all (to put the cart
before the horse, for the sake of clearness), a great and
first-class river, such as the Reuss, the Aar, the Inn, the
Rhone, flowing down a deep and broad valley that it has
carved through the mountains. ‘This valley lies quite
low as regards sea-level, and is fed by contributory
streams that come in at right angles from secondary
valleys high up in the hills on either side. In their
upper reaches it is the habit of these to flow along a
fairly level course, and then to achieve their final descent
into the main body by a series of crashing leaps that
72 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

disposes of the two or three thousand feet they may have
to descend in about a quarter of a mile. A notable
instance is the Reichenbach, which foams imperiously
enough down from Rosenlaui, and then takes its leap to
join the Aar in the most imposing of Swiss waterfalls.
(For its rival, the Handegg, offers no such coup dil
as the Reichenbach, slinking down in all its volume
through the concealment of a cafion, with an unmanly
coyness as indecent and grotesque as if Moses were to
coquet behind a fan.)

The Rhone and the Aar flow among cultivated lands
and cornfields, their tributaries from above through the
dense pine woods. But these tributaries, in turn draining
the lower mountain-mass, are fed by yet other streamlets
pouring down at right angles again from the open fell
above—(and thus, roughly speaking, parallel with the
big river five thousand feet below). And then again,
these very streamlets from the upper barrens have carved
glens for themselves between the topmost ridges, and are
nourished by little filaments of water, trickling down
from right and left from innumerable gullies and screes
in the high snows. ‘Thus, from ever higher and higher, one
stream is perpetually flowing at right angles into another,
until you reach the last faint runnels that have been
washing the feet of Ranunculus gilacialis, or carrying
vigour to the opening gaze of Eritrichium nanum. I hope
I have sufficiently shown that the water system of the
Alps is perfectly pinnatifid ?

The drive up the Val d’Hermance is beautiful but
without event. There is only the one great thing to see
at the end of the valley, far up beyond invisible Evolena.
Now on one side goes the road over open lands and past
sun-beaten banks aglow with the rare yellow Ononis.
Then loom into sight a row of portents—enormous, big-
hatted monsters aligned across the way. These are the
A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA 13

Pyramides d’Euseignes. Water, it seems, has in the
interminable course of years eroded all this valley. But
certain huge stone blocks have sheltered the light friable
tufa on which they rested; with the result that each
block stands up, like a gigantic toadstool, on a tapering
twenty-foot spire. And here these fantastic mushrooms
rise aloft securely on their stems, and bid fair to outlast
the valley, and grow taller as its soil is washed away.
Only man has ever been successful as their enemy. Some
perverted mind once conceived the idea of using the
pyramids for targets in gun-practice. Popular indignation,
however, stopped the irreverence before much damage
had been done.

After Euseignes the road crosses to the other side of
the valley, and mounts and mounts. At a dizzy depth
below, by the foot of the precipice, the river brawls
downwards over its rocky bed. The roadway is a mere
wrinkle on the face of the cliff. Overhead, as the air
clears, hardens, deepens to the cold calm of sunset, the
high snows begin to appear, chill and sombre above the
last pines. But neither precipice, nor pyramids, nor
yellow Ononis can hold one’s attention for long against
the dominant presence of the Val d’Hermance. For one
has not been bowling for long through the upper valley
before one comes into sight of its reigning deity. Snow
here, snow there, high overhead, is our right; we expect
it. But snow is one thing, ordinary white teeth of
mountain are one thing; the Dent Blanche is quite
another. Away, away at the uttermost extremity of the
valley the mountain-spire leaps into sight, and the un-
relenting majesty of it is like the blast of trumpets. As
I have already said, all these secondary streams flow from
some big mother-peak, and these mountain glens end
always in a pre-eminent height of snow. The Val d’Her-
mance is formed like a Y, and while the right-hand
14 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

branch brings a stream down from Arolla and the Mont
Collon, the left arm is called the Val d’Hérens, and
descends immediately from the Dent Blanche. And at
the junction of the Y stands Evolena, where the traveller
may spend the night.

It was on a blazing morning that I set out from Evolena
for Arolla, up the steep valley to the right, upon whose
bare slopes of grass a pitiless sun was beating. There is
nothing but a track after Evolena, so that one must either
walk or jog it on a mule. Where, in the lower valleys,
it is a question of tramping endlessly upwards through
sweltering forests, I myself prefer the mule as the least
unpleasant of unpleasant ways to achieve a necessary piece
of drudgery. (This may sound irreverent. Remember that
I speak as a gardener. Opulent as the pine-woods are,
they give a gardener very little of interest. And no one
will deny that they can be stuffy and hot to an infernal
degree.) But from Evolena, standing so high as it does,
only desultory fringes of woodland are to be feared on our
upward way to Arolla. So that with an undaunted heart
one can set out to walk the six miles or so that lie between
the two.

Very soon one has to say good-bye to the Dent Blanche,
which passes out of sight as one diverges from the Val
d’Hérens. And it is almost with relief that one escapes
from that overpowering presence. All ranges and peaks
seem to me to have a personal character of their own.
Indeed, this is inevitable. Since all things organic and in-
organic, all rocks and mountains and trees must ultimately
become Buddha, perfect and unchanging, it follows that,
of these enormous pilgrims in the road of salvation, some
must be farther advanced on the way than others—that
all must, in fact, have personalities of their own. And,
far down in the scale as the rocks must be, the Dent
Blanche is surely farther down than many of its rivals,
A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA 15

The Matterhorn, arrogant and terrible, has splendour and
generosity ; the Wetterhorn is obviously good-tempered ;
Mont Blane and Mont Rose are two stout and cosy
dowagers, Mrs. White and Mrs. Pink; even the Weiss-
horn has in its beauty an energetic fury that suits well
with a pilgrim on the Way—although that energy be
sometimes turned to evil. And Fuji-yama is surely not
so much mountain as Bodhisatta. Very near the close of
its journey is Fuji-san, and no one could be surprised to
discover, some morning, that it had faded out during the
darkness, and passed away into the Peace, which is Nirvana.
But about the Dent Blanche there is a cold and sluggish
malice, unsleeping, unhasting, which owns no kindred
with the stolid, fund-holding respectability of Mrs. White,
the fierce nobleness of the Weisshorn, or the divine tran-
quillity of Fuji-san. The Dent Blanche, as far as hills
can have a heart, has an evil, unfriendly heart, which
is very far indeed from learning that Love Catholic,
which is the way of Release. The Dent Blanche, indeed,
has beauty for its only merit, and therein lies its salva-
tion. For it is unorthodox folly to say that handsome is
as handsome does, and that plain faces can hide lovely
souls. If the soul be lovely, the face must have its beauty
too, by the law of inevitable consequence, that we call
Karma, even though that beauty be rare, exotic, hard to
see. And, on the other hand, nothing beautiful can ever
be altogether evil, since beauty can only co-exist with
inner loveliness, or the possibility of inner loveliness, no
matter how remote, how deeply buried in vanity, malice,
and frivolity. And therefore, in the enormous course of
years, there is as sure an ultimate hope for the beautiful
Dent Blanche as for any beautiful man or woman who has
ever followed desire through selfishness and treachery.
For in the very fact of outward beauty lies the promise of
inward good. The seed is there, though many a load of
76 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

soil must be cleared away before the Great Light can
penetrate its husk and ripen it to germination.

Over the sun-trodden slopes of grass the mule-track
mounts to Arolla. The scant, browned herbage wavers in
the heat. Little lizards pant in ecstasy on the burning
stones of the low wall that skirts the cobbled ascent. A
hot fragrance of life and flowers throbs round one as one
goes, and from each burning surface of rock rise on stiff,
sticky stalks the rosy star-clusters of Sempervivum arach-
noideum. Rosy I call them, and rosy they are in our pale
air, but there, in that blaze, they are fire-red, glowing,
incandescent. And their mats of round rosettes, too, are
silver white with dense tomentum. In England we can
rarely hope to see the bloom as brilliant, the little balls
as snowy with down. The heat it is that achieves both
miracles of beauty, and my climate, to speak for myself
alone, has no friendly torridness for the Houseleeks.
They live—oh yes, they live—and even thrive in a pallid
way, but never do they attain the solid silver, the intense
glow, that transfigured them on a sun-baked slope
of Switzerland. My wet winters martyrise them, my
uncertain summers perplex and bore them. On one rock,
indeed, in the Old Garden, I had once ¢ectorum, arach-
noideum, and Laggeri thriving excellently. Then my
manager and I read Clarke’s book on Alpines, put our
heads together in a pious and humble spirit, and, as the
author warmly enjoined, planted all our Sempervivums
anew in a mixture of clay and cow-manure. With the
result that they unanimously languished and expired.

All the Sempervivums, in fact—and they are legion; I
might consume pages in analysing and noting the minute
differences that make up the two hundred species or more
that are cultivated—are sun-worshippers of the purest
Zoroastrian zeal. Of them all, arachnoideum, with its
lovely variety transalpinum, is my favourite. Tectorum,
A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA 177

our English Houseleek, is good and useful. Not far off
are triste, Wulfeni, Reginae-Amaliae. Rubicundum is
smaller than these last, rare, and very rich in colour, the
whole rosette being deep ruby-claret. But of the larger
species the finest, to my taste, is the rather uncommon
Gaudini from the Southern Alps. The rosettes of this
are big, ball-like, clear green, and furry with innumerable
small bristles. It sends out babies on long feelers, and
carries a stout head of lemon yellow flowers like Catherine-
wheels. Gaudini, too, thrives here far better than most
of its kindred, and in more ordinary soil. Sempervivum
calcaratum, if what I have is true, and not confused with
calcareum, is magnificent in size and shape; and Laggeri
is a charming wee thing, half the size of little arach-
noideum, but otherwise similar, with the same downy
white globes. For all these—at least in the rainy North
—I advise as little soil as possible, some mere crevice in
a rock with a pinch of earth, exposed to every ray of sun,
and as little troubled by rains as you can manage. And
if you wish to specialise on Sempervivum—and you could
have no worthier subject—there are Houseleeks beyond
number, as the sands of the sea, all more or less casuisti-
cally differentiated from the species I have mentioned,
which represent the typical beauties of the race,—dainty
and delightful as is every other Sempervivum that has
ever been glorified with a name to itself.

The way grows hotter as it mounts, and there is no
stick or twig of shelter. The heat seems almost too
much for all flowers except the Salamander-hearted
Sempervivums, for the only other thing which the slopes
above Evolena yielded me was a single, narrow, purple
spike of Campanula spicata. But erelong the way leads
on into a scattered woodland where Campanula pusilla
runs riot over the sun-dappled stony slope between the
rare trees. In light and shade it thrives equally, and
78 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

under the lee of every stone its little china blue-bells
dance lightly on their almost invisible stems.

It was here, just before the trees began to thicken, that
I found the dainty silver-pale variety that I call pusilla
pallida, Pallid is a word with evil connotation, and I am
sorry I chose so dishonouring an epithet for so exquisite
a colour as the silvery French-grey that you get in this
form of Campanula pusilla. ‘Then the path passes wholly
into dense shade, and skirts a mossy boulder as large as a
young church. After that it emerges and moves through
endless vicissitudes—up and down, in and out of meadow
and woodland, peaceful and pleasant to pursue. Some-
where in these parts is to be found, so M. Correvon tells
me, the very rare, tall yellow Valerian Hugueninia tana-
cetifolia, but alas! I never saw it, though it frequents
damp, mossy corners where such rank splendours as Lactuca
alpina are to be met with.

The great excitement at this part of the ascent is one’s
first sight of the Arolla Pine. About all waning, dying
species, such as Sazxifraga florulenta, Liliwm Krameri,
Campanula Allioni, there hangs a flavour of almost
Stuart romance; but Pinus Cembra is the protagonist of
nature’s tragedy in the Alps. Only in its young stages
could the tree possibly be mistaken for anything else.
As it grows older it develops a dense, club-like shape,
which enables you easily to distinguish its dark, stout
columns from several miles away, amid several thousands
of its rival species. Pinus Cembra is probably a very
ancient species. It is certainly very slow-growing, and,
I believe, not in the front rank for fertility. In any case,
it is being crowded out of the world by younger species.
In the Valais it lingers, in Tyrol, and in Siberia. You
first sight it when half-way up the path from Evolena to
Arolla, in the Arolla valley, and after that it goes with
you all the way to the glaciers at the foot of the Mont
A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA ‘9

Collon, becoming the reigning tree as you get higher.
Though in the past it has suffered fearfully from the
prodigal destructiveness of the peasants, movements are
now on foot to establish plantations of Pinus Cembra in
favoured places (at Bel-Alp, I fancy, among others), so
that its approaching extinction may perhaps be retarded
indefinitely. For the forester and landscape gardener
Pinus Cembra has no value; for the rock-garden, on the
other hand, its slow growth and its dense habit give it
very high merit. Asa wind-break it acts admirably,
and, for general use, ranks only second to the genuinely,
permanently dwarf Pinus montana.

Even at Arolla itself you do not escape entirely from
the forests, which still linger above you to the right.
But the way becomes more open as you advance, skirting
shaggy slopes of long grass and summer flowers. Not
here, though, can Campanula barbata be seen in such
unexampled splendour as in the meadows above Meiden.
There its Campaniles seem taller, its great, fringy bells
larger, more numerous, more shaggy, more blue than
anywhere else in the Alps. I have already praised this
plant ; now, deliberately, I must say that my praise was
altogether insufficient for its merits. Campanula barbata
is one of the most perfectly lovable plants that lives.
No other epithet is so apt. Other things are more flam-
boyant, other things are more startling in their colours,
but very few plants in the garden have the gay pleasant-
ness of Campanula barbata, the serene, large-hearted
charm. Last sight I had of it, I remember, was abloom
with all its usual generosity in the depths of London, on
a rock in the Physic-Garden at Chelsea.

But if the way to Arolla is not famous for Campanula
barbata, in revenge, the sunniest, driest slopes are ablaze
with the coralline loveliness of evil-tempered Dianthus
sylvestris, most ungrateful of plants. But, indeed, the
80 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

Pinks are a difficult race ; I am reminded, by my memories
of Arolla, that certain seedling Pinks, of which I held out
great hopes in My Rock-Garden, as due to bloom that
year in unheard-of loveliness, turned out, after all, to be
dull, fringy dowdies of a most vapid and milky descrip-
tion. These came to me under such high titles as
cinnamomeus and pruinosus. Only cinnabarinus failed to
bloom, and so, most likely, to disappoint. The postponed
disappointment, I already fear, is no less certain than the
bloom.

And so, past copse and meadow, the track leads on
and on, until at last we come to the Mont Collon Hotel
itself, sitting lonely at Arolla (which is only a name)
above a marsh full of Saxifraga aeizoeides. And in front
of this there is nothing but the gaunt, promising desola-
tion of stone stretching up to the feet of the Mont
Collon, whose vast bulk closes in the grim little valley.
To the right rises another big humped mountain, the
Pigne d’Arolla, carrying a few sparse old specimens of
Pinus Cembra on its rust-coloured screes. But the hotel
stands on the fringe of the last woodland, and the other
slope of the glen is clothed rather with copse and tangle
of Pinus montana than with any more notable tree. High
and high above all this stretches, against the blue, the
saw-line of the mountain-ridge, so fiercely planned as to
be hardly patient of any snow. Midway stands up the
Aiguille de la Zé, a stark pinnacle like some gigantic
saurian’s tooth, no less waspish and deadly than its hiss-
ing mosquito-cry of a name. Standing there before the
hotel, as darkness gently cools the air of the mountains,
a gardener alone will understand perhaps how the heart
of a gardener bounds to think that he has escaped the
fertile, unprofitable land of meadow and forest, that
he has come at last to the territory of great open
spaces, of that illimitable, gorgeous desolation, which
A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA 81

is the home of so much brilliant beauty, such enormous
peace.

The tutelary deity of the Arolla valley is Androsace
wmbricata. And for the Androsace you needs must go
very high up into open spaces to which the open space
below the Mont Collon is a crowded jungle. Looking
out across the acres of stone, grim evidence of altitude,
that stretch before the hotel, it is hard to realise that
only far and far above all this do you come into the real
openness, the real freedom of heart and soul and eye.
The upward way leads you first of all across the rocky
wilderness, where little dwells but Sempervivum montanum,
and then across the stream, along whose further bank it
continues for some time a mild ascent, beneath the shadow
of a precipice. Sempervivum montanum need not detain
the searcher. It is a rather undistinguished little House-
leek, with lopsided rosettes of pale green, and heads of
sad murrey-coloured Catherine-wheels. So, unheeding
the small fry of the mountains, one pursues one’s way
upwards in the grateful shadow of the cliff. Campanula
pusilla is rampant everywhere, the immense violet bells of
Campanula Scheuchzeri glitter imperially wherever water
distils, on wet rocks Pingwicula lifts its purple Gloxinia-
blooms above its flattened star of viscid, carnivorous
leaves, and everywhere Savifraga aeizoén shows its stout
little creamy spires. Only in the moraine garden shall we
ever be able to achieve the full charm of Sazifraga
aeizoon. On rock-work, in cleft and border, it has high
value and charm indeed, but set it thickly on a slope
built only of small limestone chips, and there, alone
against that background of broken stone, so lovely in its
innumerable lights and shades, its tones of lilac, white
and grey, will you get the full effect of the Saxifrage, its
tidy masses of blue and silver rosettes, the serried solid
blooms in their rounded spikes on abundant, sturdy stems.

F
82 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

I have already sufficiently lauded the easy temper of
this group of Silver Saxifrages, but their pictorial effect
is apt to be undervalued, owing, as I myself have too
readily admitted, to the dull or greenish tones that some-
times damage the brilliance of the flowers, as seen against
the uncompromising background of English rock or Eng-
lish soil. But at last I learned my lesson one day below
the Laemmern Glacier on the Gemmi. From a lawn of
purple Pansy, snow-white dazzling Ranunculus alpestris,
and the amazing blues of Gentiana bavarica and Gentiana
Favrati, I came suddenly, unexpectedly, on a high steep
shoulder of broken limestone. The whole surface of the
ground was covered with white chips, and everywhere,
over its expanse, rose crowded colonies of Sazifraga
aeizoén, gently waving its sheaves between the gorgeous
violet stars of Aster alpinus, while Biscutella laevigata
made showers of pale gold at intervals, and the hot
orange of Senecio Doronicum blazed here and there against
the cool soft silver of its leaves. And to harmonise the
whole there were frail, rare grasses, plumy, cloudy, that
shivered amid the flowers. And there, in an instant, I
learned the full decorative value of Saxifraga aeizoén.

But here, on the way from Arolla to the Plan de
Bertol, aeizoén is abundant enough on the stones.
Sometimes the blooms are heavily peppered with crimson
dots; sometimes they are almost pure in their white;
sometimes dull and stodgy. And then, all at once, my
companion—why should I conceal that this was M. Cor-
revon himself ?—darts forward with a cry. There, on a
flat rock, thick-set with its ordinary kindred, shines
before our eyes the long-sought yellow variety of Sazi-
fraga aeizoén! Though not brilliant, this yellow—it
is quite clear and soft and pure—is very easily distinguish-
able among the duller tones around.

In my rhapsodies over Eritrichium I have touched on
 

CAMPANULA BARBATA AND CAMPANULA PUSILLA.
A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA 83

the gardener’s joy of discovery. This has a quality which
can belong to few other successful quests. For what can
equal the delicious moments while one sits down in glory
at the side of one’s discovery, and finds the moments far
too holy and precious to be cut short by the premature
introduction of the trowel upon the scene? The thing is
there, for us to deal with at our reverent pleasure ; mean-
while we must adore every detail of our find, lovingly
touch the upturned petals, mark the growth, the health,
the beauty, the whole delight of the plant. There is no
hurry about precipitating the end. So there, on that
flat rock overhanging the precipice, we loiter in worship
of the yellow aeizoén; then, when our satisfaction has
been fully savoured, the trowel is introduced, cunningly
and with piety, so as to remove only a little fraction of
the clump—Anathema sempiternal on those who would
rend away the whole, and leave the rock widowed of its
chief pride! And this, again, is generously divided, that
finder and companion may share alike. So we go happy
onwards, secure in our knowledge that every rosette and
rosettling of these Silver Saxifrages is safe to make a
solid little plant by autumn.

Now the track, having passed the precipice, suddenly
takes it into its head to mount. And mount it does,
with fire and fury, in abrupt, violent zigzags, over a slope
as steep as the side of a house, and surfaced with fine
herbage, polished and slippery as glass. So quickly goes
the climb towards the upper levels that gigantic Mont
Collon, now close at hand to our right, seems to sink down
beneath us as if through a trap-door. Up and up and
up curls the track, still in the shadow of the hillside. The
grass is starred with little plants of Silene rupestris, and
the dark sapphire globes of Phytewma pauciflorum. Here
and there occurs the one-flowered form of Campanula
barbata, which, so far I have never proved constant
84 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

in cultivation. Then, high above, solid rock, reddish,
granitic, begins to loom overhead. The track reaches it.
Now we are on the territory of Androsace imbricata.
Androsace imbricata is within reach—perhaps even within
sight. But the keenest search fails to discover any of
those expected silvery cushions nestling into crevices of
the cliff.

So our upward way continues. Suddenly there is
nothing more above us. In another instant we have
topped that long dark slope, and emerge, dazzled, into
the full glare of day. Up and down before us lie
unrolled the lawns of the Plan de Bertol—one golden fire,
in the sunlight, of Gewm montanum and other little yellow
glories of the grass. Looking back across the invisible
deep gulf beneath us, we seem on a level with the mid-
most snow-patches of Mont Collon itself. Our vast, sun-
flooded tract of colour is closed on the right by a barren
wall of mountain. To the left, high above us, stretches
a huge amphitheatre of granite cliffs, from whose feet a
wilderness of broken stone flows away down towards the
grass. A moraine—ice and stone and glacier-mud and
water—mounts beyond this from the stream’s head to the
head of the glen, and on the right, above other stone
slopes, a snow-field, daunting, cold, and azure (for the sun
has not yet touched it), leads upwards to the Col de Bertol.
Now I know that my quest is achieved, for, all round
that amphitheatre is a classical station for Androsace im-
bricata. Meanwhile my companions are more eager to
scale the Col de Bertol, whence, from the Hut, the climber
is rewarded by a view over the Val d’Hérens to the Dent
Blanche. I, for my part, having no love for snowfields in
themselves, prefer to spend my day in the more placid
delights of the Plan de Bertol. Accordingly the others
depart on their way, and I am left alone.

To be alone in wide, great places is sometimes too
A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA 85

terrible a thing for little mundane man. In the high
valleys of the Alps, where the silence is so vast that
it seems as if a single uttered word would shatter the
roof of the world, the nearness of the Gods is either
purifying or appalling, according to one’s strength of
mood. All the Lords of Life and Death, all Gods and
Saints, all Buddhas and Bodhisattas out of the infinite past
and the infinite future, they are all there, making part of
that immeasurable beauty, chanting in the choir of that
eternal silence, incarnate in the radiance of that un-
stained mountain sunlight. They are the irresistible
Powers of the air; the lucid diamond air is rHEm. So
that, if one be strong enough, from hours of solitude in
upmost Alps, one can drink big draughts of immortality,
can leave behind for a wholesome hour the unrealities of
earthly life, and lose consciousness of the phantom daily
self in reunion with the divine eternal Self.

However, if such a mood be not upon you, be careful
how you venture into the mountains. Be careful how
you go there accompanied by unworthy thoughts, petty
ambitions, hopes and fears. For the pure Spirits of the
hills are not patient of such affronts, and they will have
none of such thoughts in their presence, nor of you that
bring them. You will be unhappy in such august
neighbourhood—feel ill-attuned, unwanted, disliked. In
such a mood, or when weakness and the love of human
comradeship is upon one, let us stay happily at the
Schweizerhof, or parade the streets of Zermatt. For the
terror of the hills is dreadful, cold, annihilating. It
strips man of his dignity, denies his existence, reduces
him to an ineffectual ghost, a mere dwavpov eidwXor of his
decent Bond Street entity. On level lawns in the Alps I
have felt a spiritual terror so glacial and overpowering
that I have scarcely been aed pu? Bin Saiful g¢ foot
before the other. Not Oth Gh oBEn GRC Htety BE

DEPARTMENT UF FLORIGULT AE

AND
ORNAMENTAL ROATIGULT IE

CORNET! UNIVERSITY
86 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

anything tangible or obvious to fear for one’s bodily
safety in the way of cliffs, glaciers, crevasses, but simply
that my spirit, on those days, was too little to cope with
the universal Godhead of the world, too fast-riveted
in egoism to sink itself in the divine personality. On
the other hand, there are days when one is more worthy
of that divine companionship, capable of losing one’s
self and becoming God. And, on such a day, loneliness
among the hills is strengthening and sacred.

Nor does the beauty of the place go for much in one’s
feelings. I don’t know that the Plan de Bertol is particu-
larly beautiful, beyond the intoxicating loveliness of
clean, empty air, of uncontrolled light and space. Yet
there I felt solitude most blessed, whereas high up on the
Col that leads over Meiden to St. Luc, in surroundings
far more dazzling, and with the dizzying magnificence of
the Weisshorn ruling all the mountain world, I yet was
glad of companionship; felt the whole thing a magnificent
painted scene, stood far outside it, without desire for
solitude or closer communion.

Over the grassy knolls of the Plan de Berto] one wanders
on, trampling the golden glow of Geum montanum as one
goes. The close lawn becomes a carpet of colours—
Pansies, Primulas, Gentians make its tissue. Then
comes the streamlet, dancing down among the glacial
buttercups from the stony moraine above. On this, in
the sodden blue clay between the blocks, one comes on
plants of Saxifraga biflora, drenched and drageled with
mud. And here, too, though we are in full granitic for-
mation, I came on one plant of Campanula cenisia. As
for Ranunculus glacialis, it is everywhere, now, in wet
places among the shingles. Its large, solid flowers shine
white as snow, and in the course of years each unit has
developed into a solid clump of a hundred plants or so,
each separate crown, almost, carrying one of those gleam-
A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA 87

ing brilliant blossoms, waxy-pure against the gold of
their stamens, except where the fertilised flowers are
fading to a dim,sad pink. And then, joyous find, comes
an isolated mass of Gewm reptans. Geum montanum, the
golden Mountain-Avens, is a common little glory enough,
quite dwarf and vigorous, with bright yellow flowers as
large as a florin. And this, in cultivation, is as thrifty and
easy a thing as you could have for any sunny rock-work
or raised border—healthy, spreading, floriferous—though
in cultivation its stems shoot up to six inches or so.
But its big cousin, Geum reptans, is very different in
every respect. You are generally very high on the last
moraines of all before, far ahead of you, on the unbroken
grey of the stones, you see a sudden flare of gold. As
almost all flowers except the smallest and dullest are now
left behind, you cannot imagine what the yellow vision
may be. It is Gewm reptans, making one compact colony at
that point, and notoccurring again over the whole moraine.
It is much bigger in growth than montanum, the pinnate
leaves standing erect, and the whole plant reaching eight
or ten inches in height. The flowers are, I think, the
most magnificent in all the high-Alpine flora, from the
point of view of combined brilliancy and size. They
conquer even Aster alpinus and Senecio Doronicum—
great golden St. John’s Worts they are, as large as a
crown-piece—yes, and much larger, too. From the
stock each parent-plant sends out a thin pink runner like
that of a strawberry, which produces a young growth.
Thus the species multiplies, yet stays perpetually in the
same spot.

In cultivation, unfortunately, Geum reptans is uncer-
tain. It lives perfectly well, even multiplies, with some
success. But it very rarely flowers. I am convinced,
though, that it will prove (I haven’t yet tried it so, but mean
to this season) a first-rate moraine plant, since what it
88 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

obviously requires is to be kept awake by sheer starvation,
in the thinnest, rubbliest scruff of stone and grit, instead
of being allowed to sink into sybaritic sleep in rich
garden soil.

Crossing the moraine at last, one sets oneself to climb
towards the sun-steeped granite cliff on which one hopes
to find the Androsace. As a matter of fact, there is no
such delirium of excitement about this present quest as
there was about that of Evitrichiwm nanum. For there
all was uncertainty—the place, the moment, everything.
Now, on the contrary, I know for absolute fact, that in
those baking cliffs overhead I shall soon be seeing Andro-
sace imbricata. And sure enough as I clamber up the last
steepest slope to the foot of the precipice, I see the treasure
before me immediately—three or four powder-white balls
of down, wadded immovably into a crevice. Immovably
indeed. Nothing can I do to stir them. Gently as you
urge them, they resist indomitably. Pull them, and they
break at the neck. It is true that in a covered frame of
moist sand, shaded, with plenty of air, you can strike cut-
tings of many difficult things, such as Eritrichium and
Androsace, as easily as Violas; but the pious collector's
instant ambition is always to get perfect roots. So I
quest along the face of that amphitheatre, beneath a
daunting heat beyond words to express, and nowhere do I
discover a single amenable plant of the silver Androsace.
From every chink its little cushions leer out at me in
derision; but in the face of abundance, it seems I must
ironically starve. Finally, having perlustrated the whole
semicircle, I retreat baffled, and drop down to the moraine
again, to eat my four Marie biscuits to the accompani-
ment of glacier water. Fortified by this repast, however,
I decide after lunch to make another effort to secure
my lovely prey. I mark a certain little jagged tooth
of granite far overhead, standing aloof from the main
A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA 89

amphitheatre, or rather its last desultory outcrop. There,
if anywhere, the rock looks rotten and friable. I set
myself a-climbing. Steep is the rocky slope, in all
conscience, under the sun. But it is nothing to the space
beyond. For here, the tension of the hill’s angle relaxing
for a couple of hundred yards or so, enormous boulders
are heaped and piled in the loosest and most distracting
confusion. They are the size of little houses, these blocks,
and one’s only progress is to climb laboriously up one,
then drop into dismal depths on its further side, and so
up the face of another. And so on, and so on, and so on,
until one feels like an ant ina sugar-basin. At last, how-
ever, I reach my little jag of rock, and there have the
joy of finding my hopes justified. For the cliff is quite
loose and disintegrated here, slab lifting off slab in the
easiest and most delightful way. And between these two
separable slices, Androsace imbricata in abundance makes
the jam of this ‘satisfying sandwich’ (alas that there is
no one present to finish the tag ‘and broach the exhila-
rating marsala’ in honour of the occasion !). Delightedly,
then, I lay bare the whole ramification of its silky roots,
and take a fair proportion of plants, blameless in my
certainty that I am doing them no wrong, but giving
them as fair a chance of thriving as any collector’s skill
could -offer. And so, at last, as the sun’s majesty goes
westering and the air glows with a ruddier gold, my com-
panions are seen far-off, black specks on the snowfields,
and when they rejoin me on the Plan, we all continue
our rejoicing homeward way together, almost too deeply
sated with success to feel more than a passing thrill when,
not half a mile from the hotel, as we return along the
path, Aquilegia alpina is seen nodding two of its glorious
blossoms at us from a bush.

The ascent on the right from the Arolla Hotel takes
one on to a different geological formation, which pro-
90 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

duces astonishing differences in the flora. Androsace
Chamagjasme is replaced by A. obtusifolia. Aster alpinus
is abundant in the higher reaches, with Ranunculus pyre-
naeus and Androsace carnea; and of larger things the big
gentians are very abundant, every possible hybrid of
purpurea occurring in every conceivable shade of colour,
from dull tawny to claret.

Androsace carnea is a pretty treasure, whose merit has
been obscured by the greater merit of his major eximia,
and his minor Laggeri. The type carnea is a thin and
wiry-leaved species, quite dwarf, with a head of rather
pale little Primula-flowers. Eximia has much broader,
solider, glossier leaves, with bigger flowers, more abundant,
and of a much deeper pink. The type, however, is very
well worth growing, and, with eximia, has the strong
recommendation of being perfectly easy to grow, quite
trustworthy and robust, preferring a light, rich peaty
soil, and needing no glass protection in winter, as do the
downy-leaved species from the higher Alps and the
Himalya. In point of fact, the cultivator can always
tell the easier Androsaces by the fact that their leaves
are thin, leathery, and devoid of down.

Another in this blessed category is 4. vitaliana—some-
times called Aretia vitaliana—pardonably, too, as it is so
unlike the other Androsaces. It makes a prostrate mat
of dark green, furry branches, and then emits a quantity
of brilliant golden-yellow flowers, in shape and almost in
size recalling those of Jasminum primulinum. This plant,
though perfectly easy and safe in any soil and any decent
aspect, must yet be bought with caution. There is a thin-
leaved, sparse-blooming, small-flowered form of 4. vita-
liana ; and there is also a stalwart form, with leaves slightly
broader, more robust-looking, hemmed with a ciliation of
white down, which produces a splendid abundance of big
flowers, whose colour is of the richest, softest, imperial
A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA 91

yellow. Do not overfeed 4. vitaliana with too rich soil,
and you will never have any complaint to make of him.

There are some other noteworthy species, too, in the
carnea group. Brigantiaca makes larger rosettes, but is
otherwise very similar, with bigger heads of rather pallid
pink flowers; hedraeantha is much more brilliant, yet
broader-leaved, with flowers of a fine rose. This is a
novelty, hailing from the Balkans, and both species are
quite decently easy in any fair cultivation. I have hedrae-
antha in the moraine, where it throve splendidly for a
time, and will probably do so again as soon as it has
recovered from the oppressive attentions of a mouse.

All these rosy Androsaces, of course, would be even
more beautiful than they are—this is horrid ingratitude,
but also truth—if they did not have that faint, faint
lilac-magenta tone which so frequently interferes with
the purity of colour in the Primulas and their near
relations—of whom, of course, Androsaces are about the
nearest. Laggeri is, by many lengths, the best of its
kin, a tiny version of carnea, so minute in growth that its
spreading tufts might be taken for those of some small
Hypnum. However, it soon enlightens you as to its
charms by sending up a dozen little stems or more, each
crowned with a head of golden-eyed rosy flowers, the
most brilliant of all their kind—if you except the im-
possible glacialis. A. Laggeri loves a warm, loose bank
of gritty peat—at least, it does here in a moist climate,
and is a lovely treasure beyond price—especially as, being
a wiry-haired species, it needs no apparatus to ward off
winter-rain.

Androsace lactea is a link between the others, and the
annual and biennial species. It is, as a matter of fact,
very pretty; and yet, so very misrepresentative of the
name it bears that I can never love it quite as much as
it deserves. It has big rosettes of smoothish dark green
92 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

leaves, and sends up the most admirably floriferous stems
of bloom, carrying large, pure white flowers, in graceful
great loose umbels. It is a sound-hearted, thrifty,
good-natured plant, thriving almost anywhere, even in
more or less shade—a condition, I find, generally fatal
for Androsaces. (They say A. Laggeri will also do in
shade; well, it may; but I have always found that every
single one of the genus prefers sun.) It is truly perennial,
too, and goes on blooming all the summer in a very
delightful, pleasant way. I am doing all I can for the
poor dear, after so frankly owning that I cannot pay it the
debt which I admit I owe. I respect it deeply ; love no
one can command, and Androsace lactea is too like the
dreadful little annuals and biennials for me ever to feel
quite fond of it. As for them, they too have neatness
and floriferousness. But, with one or two dazzling excep-
tions, such as Linaria alpina, and Gentiana nivalis—if any
one could ever get it to grow—I regard all annual plants
in the rock-garden as out of place. They are frauds there,
come in on false pretences. Your true alpine is a sturdy
soul, who battles with the vast elemental forces of life for
half a score of years ;—not a little, frivolous ephemera that
grows up in a month, and flowers and seeds and dies all
in asummer. So away, briefly, with Androsace filiformis,
coronopifolia, Chair, raddeana, septentrionalis, and their
synonyms. They are all pretty, mind you—some of them
very pretty indeed; but I personally happen to have that
prejudice against annuals or confessed biennials—my
dazzling exceptions being only species that are too
cogently beautiful to be left out—Linaria alpina, Ionop-
sidium acaule, Saxifraga Cymbalaria—(I don’t say this is
cogently beautiful, or that I want it; but it came, and
where Saxifraga Cymbalaria comes, it comes to stay).
‘Therefore I’l] commend these annual Androsaces gener-
ously, but I won’t grow them.
A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA 93

Some of them don’t even bear commending, either. A
few years ago I got seed of an Androsace called mac-
rantha. J bought it because the name sounded so allur-
ing. A big-flowered Androsace, bless me, what a joy!
Who would have suspected a trap? But up came the
seed, so thick that I at once smelled out a disappoint-
ment; it is only weeds that germinate so eagerly. The
seedlings grew like Jonah’s gourd, and then appeared the
spikes that were to bear the eponymous big flowers.
Well, that plant bore the smallest flowers I have ever
seen, and in the most enormous calyces. Beware, then, of
Androsace macrantha, all ye that have Greek! And as
for that rarest of Italian new-comers, Androsace Mathildae,
I have not yet tried it, feeling a presentiment that it
belongs to the not too easily distinguishable cousinhood
of A. wulfeniana and A. ciliata.

As for propagating ; the high Alpines may, with great
care, be raised from cuttings struck in moist silver sand,
duly shaded. All the sarmentosa group may be pulled
to pieces at pleasure, and every piece will grow ;—a little
more care, please, with villosa and arachnoidea. Most
of the others can be divided with ease, and Jactea,
with the annuals, of course, comes profusely from seed.
Raising the rest from seed is hopeless unless the seed be
fresh, and, even so, is doubtful, slow work, though
ultimately, perhaps, a gain.
94 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

CHAPTER V
Between Mianthus and Epilobium

Or the smaller Pinks frigidus and Lereschei are said to
be lovely. But then it is a catalogue that says so. How-
ever, I hope they may be. So far, they are doing fairly
well in the moraine. Microlepis I got with great excite-
ment, from Servia, but it appears to be a minute and
not extremely fascinating variety near glacialis, which
attempted to prove kinship with that peevish plant by
expiring as soon as it could. Dianthus Sternbergi appears
to be promising, but I am a little tepid about it, since I
discovered that it stands between monspessulanus and
superbus. Now all my warmest affection is reserved for
the dwarf, cushiony Pinks. Dianthus integer seems to be
very uncertain. Many false forms are certainly doing
duty for it. I believe I have at last got the genuine
plant from Ljubotren, and it looks cosy and distinct in
growth, so that I look forward to its flower. Dianthus
dentosus from South Russia I have never succeeded in
getting. Mr. Robinson’s description fired me. A Cushion-
Pink with violet-lilac flowers might be so extremely pretty
(it might, on the other hand, be horribly ugly); however,
as I seem unable to obtain the plant, such speculations
are profitless. Dianthus squarrosus and Dianthus sub-
acaulis are two small people I once had, but they have, I
think, vanished, without leaving any aching void in my
heart. Where, exactly, Dianthus petracus comes, I can-
 

DIANTHUS NEGLECTUS.
BETWEEN DIANTHUS AND EPILOBIUM 95

not tell. It has varying descriptions, one of which is
suspiciously like that of glacialis. My plant, however,
is a thrifty, tight-growing Alpine, with white, fringed
flowers, of easy culture and pleasant habit.

Of vaginatus, the true fiery Holtzeri, of Requieni,
Seguiert and many others, I only have seedlings at
present, so that my utterances would only be those of
hope, not those of experience, and what they might thus
gain in radiance they would lose in authority. I have
also had, my catalogue tells me, a hybrid of alpinus and
callizonus. I cannot even remember it; evidently the
plant shared the constitution of its father. Dianthus
roseus, that was once sent me, is quite falsely named, but
is a pretty, small plant, with glaucous tufts and white
flowers: and Spencer Bickham is a bright caesius hybrid.

Among my other obscure or doubtful pinks stands a
very interesting one that I collected at St. Martin
Vesubie, and which, in my own mind, for lack of
authoritative name, I think of as serotinus. For the
merit of this plant is that it sends up its long wiry strag-
gling boughs in October, and opens its great fringy
flowers in November. These are of a brilliant carmine-
magenta, and glow like sparks amid the deadness of the
garden. For the plant, easy and robust under cultiva-
tion, faithfully retains its late-blooming habit, despite
all temptations of changed season and climate. Very
lovely too is another vigorous novelty, no less easy and
even more striking. This is a hybrid of caesius and
superbus, which makes a tiny bush, clothed all the
summer through with innumerable jagged flowers of a
rich warm rose. This has the merits of its parents, and
is invaluable,—the best, after alpinus and. negilectus.

Lychnis has but one exception to the rule of ugliness
that taints its colours. In almost all Lychnises (and
pink Silenes too) there is a tang of magenta which very
96 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

much unfits them for certain tastes. Lagascae, though,
is a precious little plant from the Pyrenees, with bright,
pure pink flowers with a white eye, a true rock-plant,
rather inclined to be petulant and miffy in temper,
demanding a well-drained fissure, from which, if happy, it
sprouts like a bush, bearing abundance of blossom till
quite late in the season. Pyrenaica is near it, but white,
or pale pink. This I have grown, but lost some years
ago, and have never replaced.

Lychnis alpina and Lychnis lapponica are so close to
each other as not to be easily distinguishable from a
gardener’s point of view—both small tufty plants with
tight, short-stemmed heads of magenta crimson or lilac
flowers, varying to white. Alpina is a rare native, found
on Hobcartin Fell in Cumberland, and both species are
Northerners of the easiest cultivation, but not, to me, of
any great charm, owing to the impurity of their colour.
Lychnis Viscaria, with its double and splendens varieties,
resembles a magnified alpina in every way, and labours
(with the new Sartori) under exactly the same disabilities
and advantages. As for the double white form of our
common native vespertina, it is rare, easy, and decidedly
pretty in its way. Of the Saponarias, ocymoeides splen-
didissima is indeed a splendid, good-natured trailer, to fall
over a sunny rock in a dazzling sheet of rosy blossom.
The rarer species, Saponaria wiemanniana, is a novelty
which I am trying, which is reported to make free-flower-
ing tufts of pink. Caespitosa is a good thing, making
larger tufts of paler blossom. Luwtea is a curious and
very attractive Saponaria—low-growing, with short-
stemmed heads of pale saffron flowers. She dwells in
the Piedmontese Alps and blooms in July or August,
very delightfully, with blackish stamens to enhance her
flowers. Her constitution is not, I believe, absolutely
trustworthy, but I have never had much difficulty with
BETWEEN DIANTHUS AND EPILOBIUM 97

any of these Saponarias, growing them all on sunny
banks.

Of the Gypsophilas, no sane person would admit
paniculata or any of the big rampant species to the rock-
garden. But repens (or prostrata) is a valuable high-
alpine, of the very easiest cultivation, forming immense
thick mats of pale pink or white blossom borne in
showers just above the succulent-looking greyish foliage.
Even this species must be kept away from the choicest
pets, but Swndermanni and cerastioeides are both neat
little tufted things, with quantities of charming, pink-
marked flowers, who may be grown anywhere, even
among the smallest treasures. Stndermanni is white,
cerastioeides pink with deeper markings. The larger
species are sometimes frightful ;—I once had scorzonerae-
folia as a present, and vastly plumed myself on such a
novelty, until it bloomed, and revealed itself one of the
coarsest and least attractive of weeds.

The Alpine Cerastiums (Chickweeds) are not, somehow,
of very easy culture. They have a way of fading from
my garden and my memory too, The rare woolly native,
Cerastium alpinum, is fairly easy, if it does not damp off
in winter, and its big white flowers are pretty. Glaciale
is very beautiful indeed, with round snowy blooms that
lie about over the moraine. I have collected him times
without number, with every care, but he has never lasted
long in cultivation. The most generally useful is the
white-leaved tomentosum, so abundantly used in grave
adornment ; but this is far too rampageous for the rock-
garden. And so, really, is Cerastium repens, which I once
accepted gratefully, and have waged vain war against ever
since. It is a passionately-spreading weed with glossy
leaves, and myriads of ragged white flowers, not nearly so
fine as those of tomentosum.

Besides verna and gothica the Arenarias give us one

G
98 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

or two very valuable species. Arenaria montana, for a
sunny rock-face, is a splendid hanging plant, forming a
perfect curtain covered all over with its shilling-large,
snow-white flowers. Ciliata and norvegica are small
forms, one decumbent, the other tending to be erect,
very near gothica, and not quite so pretty. Huteri is a
high-Alpine with big white blossoms, that seems to be
thriving in the moraine-garden. Purpurascens is a very
charming, free-flowering person of easy culture—a pro-
strate mass with glossy leaves, and pale lilac stars. There
is another plant, a weird, ugly thing, sent me once as
norvegica, with grassy leaves, and bunchy heads of
rather dingy-white blooms; this is probably Arenaria
graminifolia. As for Arenaria balearica, that delightful
little Corsican is a perfect weed here, in this moist
climate, sowing itself all over the place; and the only
attention it requires is the negative one of weeding it up
when necessary. For let no one be so deceived by the
apparent frailness of those brittle little stems, as to use
it as a carpet for choice plants. <Arenaria balearica
forms a dense, strangling mat, in which, before long,
everything else, however vigorous, gives up the ghost
and expires. But oh! it is a joy when the whole
emerald sheet of it is covered with its wee brilliant white
stars. Even here it doesn’t like being sunburnt ; so that
elsewhere it may prefer shady treatment; but in this
climate, as I say, the plant is a very weed of weeds.

Speaking horticulturally, nothing separates Alsine
from Arenaria—and the Alsines laricifolia, pinifolia, and
Rosani are all valuable, thrifty, easy-going plants for
sunny rock-work, making mats of emerald fur, and then
sending up big snowy blossoms on frail stems. Ledebouri-
ana I have only just got; but there is a very strong
family likeness among these plants, and I find a prefer-
ence very hard to arrive at.
BETWEEN DIANTHUS AND EPILOBIUM 99

Not very far from Arenaria is Moehringia, a very
curious species from shady alpine woods. There are
several Moehringias, but only with minute differences.
They all make a filmy cloud of fine foliage, starred with
small whity-green flowers. All must have shade and
moisture, and are interesting if not very thrilling.

Tunica Saxifraga is a most pleasant treasure from the
south, who proves quite hardy and vigorous in this
climate, even in open beds—though, of course he is safer
on the rock-work, where his neck is safe from excessive
damp in winter. I have found him all along the eastern
and western Riviera, growing, for instance, among grass
and rocks near the lighthouse above Antibes, in face
of that most glorious view in EKurope—which, over the
sea, and over the little, unchanged Greek city, and over
all the intervening ranges, has the whole splendour of the
Maritime Alps unrolled from end to end, from crown to
base, from the Argentera to the last peaks beyond the
Col de Tenda. In cultivation Tunica makes a wide
cloud of airy green, richly galaxied with innumerable
rosy-pink stars all through the season and far on into
autumn. Sometimes he is even a little inclined to
overflower himself and die—but how different, morally,
is this excessive generosity, from the greed of vulgar
display that dictates the same conduct in the semi-
double Mule-Pinks! And Tunica, too, sets abundant
seed, so there is neither reason nor excuse why any one
should ever be without him. All he wants is full
exposure and good root-room. Then he will be a per-
ennial joy.

And now a sudden burst of candour compels me to
burst back upon my own track and make mention of the
Milkworts. On the principle that if you have nothing
pleasant to say you should hold your tongue, I had
allowed myself to pass the Milkworts over in a tactful
100 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

silence. But no; this will not do. I must be honest,
and confess before the world that Polygala Chamaebuxus
does not seem to requite my affection. I swear I love her
wholeheartedly, the little creeping Box that one finds on
the lower Alp, with butterfly-shaped flowers of cream and
yellow and white and orange (so curiously recalling the
colours of a poached egg, 4 la Portugaise). Rhodoptera is
a crimson-winged form, and Vayredae a delightful near
relation; but the whole family has no love for me.
And this is the more humiliating because these Milkworts
are usually the easiest of plants to grow, thriving where
they are happy, like so much Couch-grass. But, if the
truth must out, it takes a great deal of trouble in this
garden to make any of the peat-zone Alpines really com-
fortable ; so that, after much sorrow and expense, I have
almost accepted my refusal at the hands of Polygala
Chamaebuaus, and betaken myself to other kindlier
loves.

Of the Flaxes, any one and every one grows the noble
big yellow ones, Linum flavum and Linum arboreum,
neither of which is perfectly, safely hardy, though, even
here, they are seldom if ever really injured by the winter.
But the rock-garden possesses two most delightful dwarf
Flaxes in Linum alpinum and Linum sailsoloeides. Linum
alpinum is like a dwarf almost trailing version of the
ordinary Flax, with lovely soft blue flowers. It thrives
in any open position, and the wonder is that people do
not make more use of it. The other rock-garden species
is even less common; Linum salsoloeides haunts the
Maritime Alps—I have collected him above St. Martin
Vesubie on hot sunny banks below the Alpine region.
He is almost prostrate—in a very rare form, of which I
only have one plant, he is quite so—making a few
wiry branches, furry with narrow green leaves, like a
miniature pine-twig. The flowers are large, ice-cold
BETWEEN DIANTHUS AND EPILOBIUM 101

white, with darker veining and a purple eye—delicate
as Nierembergia frutescens and entrancing as Geranium
lancastriense.

The one thing that Linum salsolocides needs is ex-
posure; the one thing he cannot and will not put up
with is excessive damp. Give him a high, hot crevice,
and I dare warrant you will have no more trouble with
him, but increasing pleasure from year to year. He is
not a difficult plant, but dislikes any neglect of his own
pet fads: ‘Don’t try no impogician with him, for he will
not abear it.’

Other Flaxes that come in very handy are the tall,
bushy, blue-flowered Linum sibiricum, with its white form
—often sent out in plants or seeds for the rarer alpinum,
so be careful—a perennial version of the commercial
Flax; and Linum viscosum, another south-European,
growing about a foot high, with large, soft, pink flowers.
These are quite comfortable to deal with, though viscosum
must be planted where moisture in winter cannot annoy
him. He is a compatriot of salsoloeides, which is hard
on him, I feel. For salsoloeides has so pure an elegance
of charm, that the stout leafy boughs of viscosum and
its big mauve flowers seem, in comparison, blowzy and
commonplace.

The St. John’s Worts are a large and showy race ;
and the more ordinary sorts are so well known and so
much grown that I need not mention them, except to
suppose that no rock-gardener will have the unhappy
notion of bringing Hypericum calycinum anywhere near
the rock-garden. A worse weed, and a handsomer, was
never known. The taller species, mosertanum, patulum,
nepalense, aureum, Ascyron, Androsaemum, are all valuable
for backgrounds, but of plants for the rock-work itself
the order gives us a few really valuable ones. Hypericum
olympicum is sometimes very beautiful. It is a frail-
102 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

looking thing—at least in the form I knew and loved years
since—with thin, wiry leaves and stems, crowned by three
or four immense golden blooms. But olympicum, I found,
required starvation; in good soil he grew lumpish, and
the flowers tried to come out all at once, and made
a jumble of it, and looked stodgy and vulgar. And then
the plant died; and those I have now don’t look to me
quite the same thing—their leaves seem rounder, some-
how, and thicker. However, I shall not be able to decide
until they bloom. Hypericum cuneatum is a small, new
Alpine which I have only just got; and Hypericum
diffusum, another rarer treasure, was given me some
years since, in cutting form, but failed to do any
good.

The two bracketed glories of the race are Hypericum
reptans and Hypericum Coris. Reptans is a Himalyan,
absolutely prostrate, falling over rock-faces in a dense
cascade of little ovate leaves. The flowers appear from
July to the end of October here, and are as large as a five-
shilling bit—rose-red externally, and inside, of the love-
liest radiant soft yellow, so pure and luminous that they
make you look round on a dull day to see where the sun-
light is falling from that so kindles them. The plant is un-
imaginably good-tempered, too, and resents neither wind
nor weather ; only plant it high on the rock-work that it
may stream down in a curtain at eye-level, and show the
fresh radiance of its pale golden suns. In spring its mats
look dead and drear as Ulalume, but before very long
they break up from the base, and soon the whole blessed
process of development is in full swing. The plant can
be raised with equal ease from seed or cuttings, and on
every account—being absolutely without fault, either of
appearance or demeanour—ranks high in the first half-
dozen Alpines of one’s choice. There is also a Hypericum
repens, a pretty creature—but reptans so knocks all
BETWEEN DIANTHUS AND EPILOBIUM 103

competitors out of the field that no other St. John’s Wort
has a chance of admiration, except Hypericum Coris.

Corts ‘and reptans set up claims together on the Merry
and Cherry Pecksniff scheme: ‘No connection with the
establishment over the way, and if the quality of goods
there don’t please you, you are respectfully requested to
favour me with a call.’ And hence it is that these two
manage not to enter into any rivalry. Reptans lies on the
ground, adhaeret pavimento; Coris makes a little aspir-
ing bush about six inches to a foot in height. Reptans
has green, ovate leaves ; Coris has wiry, blue-grey ones :
reptans has one big flower to a shoot ; Coris has half a
dozen smaller, more golden ones, arranged in loose airy
clouds. There the dissimilarity ends, for Coris is as
happy-tempered and as companionable as reptans in
every way, though I hardly think he seeds to the same
extent. I collected him years ago in the valleys leading
up to St. Martin Vesubie, where you will find him sprout-
ing out of almost every shady rock along the roadside,
among the broad mats of Saxifraga lingulata. So far as
I know, he propagates best from cuttings, and is only
unfortunate in having the unsurpassable reptans for a
brother. For the first half-dozen Alpines must not
include two Hypericums, or where should we put Gentian,
Primula, Saxifrage, Viola? And Hypericum reptans, what-
ever happens, can never be ousted from his place—not
even to make room for the only less perfect Coris.

Of the Mallows not one, I think, has any value for the
rock-garden. At least I rack my memory in vain to find
one; for the only lovely Alpine member of the family
is the gorgeous little scarlet trailing Malvastrwm coc-
cinewm, which loves jheat and drought to such an extent
that it makes no pretence at being hardy here. It won’t
even go so-‘far as to flower even once. Ah, I have got
hold of another—Callirhoé imvolucrata. The Callirhoes
104 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

are so close to Malva as to be almost synonymous. Only
involucrata is usually grown, and my experience with
involucrata has not tempted me to try any other. For
one thing, the plant is another sun- and _heat-loving
North American, extremely petulant about any undue
moisture : for another, its colour aroused in me a pained
dislike ; for I could never have imagined so burning and
acrid a magenta. (The same objection applies to Calan-
drinia umbellata and the Calandrinias generally ; miffy
plants in any damp climate, and of a gorgeously horrible
colour—all the worse for being so gorgeous.) Therefore
I lost Callirhoé and Calandrinia with feelings akin to
pleasure.

Of the Geraniums there are two exquisite Alpines,
besides lancastriense. Geranium argenteum is a Pyren-
ean, who grows about six or eight inches high in a neat
tuft. His claw-like leaves are all grey and silver ; his
big blossoms of a soft delicate pink, with deeper veining.
He blooms perpetually, and is quite happy if you give
him a well-drained chink, and leave him alone. He dis-
likes being moved; and he also dislikes any excess of
damp anywhere near him. But he is altogether as easy
as he is beautiful, and his worst fault is that he is a very
bad seed-bearer, and this is all the bitterer because he is
even more impossible to multiply by division. Geraniwm
cinereum is very near him in every way, but a trifle larger,
a trifle less dainty, a trifle less brilliant, and a trifle more
generally robust. Cinerewm is, as it were, Nature’s rough
model for argentewm, which for loveliness, charm, and
adaptability to any fair culture, takes very high rank
among the alpines of my special favour.

Among the larger Geraniums the most appalling con-
fusion reigns. So I go delicately, as Pilgrim on the
narrow way, or Mrs. Gamp on her ‘ parapidge.’ There
is, first of all, a very robust, rampageous, dwarfish person
BETWEEN DIANTHUS AND EPILOBIUM 105

with big, bright rose-pink flowers, who is very useful for
a rough place, and whom I think of as Geranium
armenum. Then there is an immense, glorious one
with a short blooming period, during which it carries
great heads of large, deep violet flowers. The leaves are
downy and the growth like a tidy, large Pratense. This,
to me, is Geranium ibericum, of which G. gymnocaulon
is a frailer form. About Geranium Endressi I am in a
stew. Have I mixed him up with armenum? Which is
it I possess? Oh, I wish they’d flower quickly and
make certain! Anyhow * Endressi’ is neat and rose-red.
As for wallichianum, I am almost beginning to hold Mrs.
Prig’s heresy. I have bought him again and again; and
now I doubt whether any one really possesses him. I
have been sent bushy, blue Wallichianums, I have been
sent floppy, magenta-pink Wallichianums, I have been
sent so many different and mutually irreconcilable
Wallichianums that my poor brain staggers as to the
problem of deciding which is genuine, if any. All that I
know is that Nicholson’s wallichtanum looks as pretty as
his horrid bad drawing will allow, and that I have never
possessed it. (Yes, I’ve now got it.)

Our native G. pratense must not be admitted to the
rock-garden. It grows obese; its development becomes
rank, its flowers small and dull; and it seeds itself remorse-
lessly everywhere. So it enjoys my misguided hospitality
no longer. Its double form, and its various white, Silver
Queen, and other fancy varieties, are interesting and rather
pretty for an out-of-the-way place. Grandiflorum is a
very superb plant, which is to all intents and purposes a
pratense with the growth no bigger than usual, but the
flower multiplied by two—a notable easy-going border
plant, whose name and history are not quite clear.
Phaeum, the rare native Dusky Cranesbill, with little
blackish purple flowers, is all right for a remote place
106 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

where nothing else is wanted, but does not deserve any
choicer entertainment. The white Herb-Robert is a
charming little Albino, but a perfect brute for seeding
itself all over the garden; and Geraniwm Lowi seems to
me nothing but an enormously-magnified, coarsened form
of the common Herb-Robert ; while Richardsoni, that I
had from the Rockies on high recommendation, is only’
a weed, like a smaller, neater pratense, with nothing but
dull, whitish flowers, poorer than striata’s.

Only botanical differences, really, separate the Stork’s
Bills from the Crane’s Bills. The Erodiums are a race
of heat-loving Southerners, which seem admirably
amenable to well-drained cultivation. They have no
very commanding brilliancy, but an extraordinary per-
sonal charm which puts them very high indeed among
rock-plants for a sunny corner. Their leaves are ferny,
finely-divided, sometimes aromatic, sometimes silvery ;
their flowers, few at a time on long-stalked heads, are
generally in very delicate colours, and sometimes most
exquisitely painted and feathered. The only absolute
dwarf I know is the charming Frodium Reichardi, whose
proper name is said to be chamaedryoeides. As life, how-
ever, is short, I shall continue to economise it by speaking
of Erodium Reichardi. He makes the neatest, roundest
flat tufts of stalked wee heart-shaped leaves, and then
sends up, each on a two-inch stem, innumerable pure white
flowers, continuing all summer through. He comes from
Majorca, and I regret to say some of my plants seem to
have died in the open last winter, though the larger,
Levantine Stork’s Bills are coming up as gaily as ever.
These are all exquisite, and all enjoy the same, well-
drained, dryish treatment, though even here they seem
as vigorous as Dog’s Mercury. Chrysanthum has pale
sulphur flowers; guttatwm, white and blotched ; macra-
denium, pink and pelargonium-like, with patches and
BETWEEN DIANTHUS AND EPILOBIUM 107

featherings of deep purple that give it the daintiest, slyest
expression. Chetlanthifolium is lovely, with leaves like
a fern, and dark pencillings on its pure white petals.
Sibthorbianum is silver grey, and rose-colour; supra-
canum, Queen of Queens, has hoary whitened leaves, and
flowers of clear pink. All these are so delightful that
there is no rivalry. One must have them, every one of
them, without exception. The only Erodium to be care-
ful about is Manescavi, a stalwart, great coarse thing
which will grow anywhere, with large handsome flowers
of an even more truculent magenta-crimson than those
of Geranium sanguineum. Personally I like the others so
very, very much, in their self-conscious, sweet refinement,
elfin and ethereal as Mélisande, that I am all the more
set against the rank gaudiness of this herbaceous weed.
The Wood-sorrels, in a race of awful little pretty
pests, have the privilege of giving us one of the very best
of all alpine plants—a species so serenely beautiful and
so easy to grow, that it counts certainly among the first
six plants to be mentioned for the rock-garden. (Alas
for the others! I have come on three candidates in as
many pages.) Owalis enneaphylla hails from the Falk-
land Isles, and makes himself tight little scaled bulbs
like a miniature Liltwm Auratum, which sit safe and quiet
underground all the winter. With spring appear the
glaucous grey leaves, each like a crinkled cluster of leaf-
lets, on stems about four inches high; then, nestling
among them, goodly white convolvulus-flowers, of a delli-
cious brilliant colour, softened to a pearly richness by the
very faintest suggestion of flesh-pink. I don’t know any
more wholly worshipful Alpine than Oxalts enneaphylla,
and (whether or no our cool climate has anything to say
to it), its hardy thriftiness is quite equal to its beauty.
I stuff it away anyhow in loam on some shady ledge, and
leave it quite unattended. Even in the fiercest or the
108 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

wettest winters it will take no harm; and then about
mid-March its leaf-buds are sure to come poking faith-
fully up, and soon the flowers are budding. So lovely is
this Oxalis, that it could never in any circumstances
become a weed. However, it does not try to do so, but
only increases slowly and modestly, forming larger and
larger tufts, but never pervading the place like its less
well-bred kindred, who seem to have no instinct as to
where they are unwelcome. I believe the only thing that
Oxalis enneaphylla dislikes is excessive sunshine; put it
under the shadow of a rock, and it will be pleased with
any well-drained soil. The other Wood-sorrels can only
be admitted with caution. The pink form of the ordin-
ary Oxalis Acetosella is rare and dainty ; Oxalis lobata is
small and pretty, with golden flowers; and the profuse
Oxalis rosea, with its tall stems and heads of rose-pink
flowers opening in sunshine, has surprised me by proving
apparently hardy here in the worst of winters. I think
these make up the most desirable species; at all events,
with these four I rest content.

The vast natural order of the Butterflies, whose Patron
Saint is the Sweet Pea, have many treasures for the rock-
garden, though there is a good deal of confusion among
them, and a certain difficulty of culture now and then.
Of the larger - growing things the Brooms are most
precious perhaps. Cytisus and Genista come very near
together, and both run to yellows, with one exception.
Cytisus purpureus is a fine dwarf shrub about a foot or
more in height, which spreads freely about, and would be
even prettier if its flowers were of a purer, cleaner colour.
However, the white form is irreproachable, and there is
a variety incarnatus, and another roseus, in which the
magenta tone is minimised. Cytisus Ardoini is the gem
of the race, a rare and fascinating wee golden-flowered
shrub from the Maritime Alps, for a dry sunny bank ;
“MMYOMMOOU AHL NO VWITAHAVANNG SITVXO

 
BETWEEN DIANTHUS AND EPILOBIUM 109

unfortunately it is a little delicate, and very much objects
to damp. Also it is exceedingly difficult to procure ; its
range is limited ; roots are not easy to come by; and as
for seed, the cattle browse so effectively over the high
Alpine pastures where it grows, that very rarely after
flowering-time can you find a sign of the plant itself, to
say nothing of its seed-pods. No wonder it remains a
rare plant of rigidly limited distribution. Perhaps the
best of all, though, for the rock-work, is the new lovely
hybrid, Cytisus kewensis, forming broad almost prostrate
masses of long thin sprays, with pendulous cream-coloured
flowers, large and beautiful. This is perfectly easy, hardy,
and persistent, to be increased by cuttings ; a picture of
loveliness in its time. Procumbens and biflorus (biflorus, I
fancy, is one parent of kewensis ; and Ardoini may be the
other) are rarities of kindred habit, bearing much the
same cream-coloured blossoms, and having much the same
creeping habit, though less vigorous, perhaps. Decwmbens
has golden flowers, and its synonym is Genista prostrata.
Schipkaensis isa charming dwarf shrub with white flowers.

Of the greater Brooms, there is the dull lilac-pink New-
Zealander, Notospartium Carmichaeliae, for a warm corner,
and then Cytisus praecox,the white-flowered, and Spartium
Jjunceum are invaluable for bold work. And all these—
Cytisus, Genista, Spartium—are of the easiest culture,
though Cytisus Ardoini and his rocky kindred deserve, of
course, more attention than the big rampers. A weird
and curious beauty, though, of whom the same cannot be
said, is Erinacea pungens; truly may this be called a
hedgehog! It makes a microscopic bush, like a Broom
dwarfed by a Japanese. Then, on the long, inexorable
bare spines that make its boughs, there break a few
apologetic-looking little leaves, and after these the large,
deep-blue flowers, Evrinacea is a Spaniard, and requires
heat and drought, and rough well-drained soil, if it is to
110 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

do well. It is a slow grower, and its synonym is Anthyllis
Erinacea, a rare, difficult plant to get hold of, though
now I have one very fine specimen firmly established in
rich warm loam on a sheltered corner of a sunny bank.

The Rest-harrows make dwarf shrubs, and are coveted
by many, though I myself have little enthusiasm for them.
They are a little coarse and undistinguished to my taste,
though their golden or rose-red flowers are undeniably
effective. Fruticosa, Natrix and rotundifolia seem the
best ; and thrive in any good sunny place. To my mind,
though, they have a good deal of leaf to not quite
enough flower, as a rule.

Astragalus is a large race, containing many valueless
weeds, and a few good things, of which Astragalus mon-
spessulanus, with its variety albus, is almost the best.
This Vetchling roams about on the ground, with hand-
some rose-crimson spikes of blossom. <Ambiguus is a
seedling of which I have great hopes. His foliage is pure
silver, his habit neat and sub-shrubby. And his flower
is to be rosy-pink,. But he seems very slow to flower.
Alpinus is handsome, but I have never possessed him.
(With rare exceptions, I must say that the Papilionaceae
don’t excite in me any very keen interest.) Tragacanthus
is a strange, thorny creature from the Mediterranean
coasts, rather curious than lovely. Our own native trailer,
though, Hypogiottis, is distinctly pretty, and I have just
got seed, too, of an undescribed Astragalus mongolicus,
on the usual gambler’s blind chance of finding a beauty ;
but indeed, these Milk Vetches, for the most part, are
coarse and dowdy plants. All, without exception, I
believe, thrive in open, sandy, sunny places, and their
finest species is Astragalus Vandasii, a rarity from Servia,
loving a hot dry bank, and making a mass of prostrate
branches, richly covered in the summer with spikes of
brilliant rose-purple flowers. In his weedy order Astra-
BETWEEN DIANTHUS AND EPILOBIUM 111

galus Vandasit takes a high place, so beautiful, yet so
robust, and this without loss of delicacy, for his whole
habit is ferny and graceful, and he never spreads from his
one crown.

The Woundworts, of whom we have a bright specimen
in Anthyllis vulneraria, of any limestone down, are good,
easy-going creatures, of whom the rosy Anthyllis montana
is the best, though the pink and white forms of vulneraria
sound delightful. But these I have never possessed.

Of the Clovers, the only one that can fitly enter the
rock-garden is 7'. alpinum (my manager grows canescens
with enthusiasm, but I think it gawky and dull); he isa
dwarf trailer, with immense rosy flowers, very handsome,
but so obstinately difficult to uproot that I have never
yet got him satisfactorily acclimatised. You find him on
the topmost ridges of the Alp, up to the edge of the
moraine. And a beautiful strip of ground that is—soft
and trim and firm as any tennis-court—a neat sward
made up of nothing but flowers—Trifolium alpinum,
tiny willows, Oxytropis montana, or pyrenaica, Silene
acaulis, Azalea procumbens, Gentiana nivalis. Oaytropis
is represented in gardens by some very lovely, ill-reputed
species. Pyrenaica, montana, Halleri, and lapponica are
all delightful dwarfs, with heads of brilliant blue-purple
flowers. But they are found difficult to acclimatise. I have
succeeded with montana and pyrenaica; the others have
failed. Ozxytropis campestris is taller, fluffy, woolly, and
dull yellow, rather ugly, whose only interest is that he is
found on one rock in the mountains near Braemar, in that
prolific block of country which gives us also Saxifraga
cernua and Saxifraga rivularis, Lactuca alpina, Gentiana
nivalis, and Myosotis alpestris. Two North American
Oxytropids are splendens and hybrida; hybrida seems

1 Astragalus Vandasii must lose marks; he is not genuinely hardy
with me: at least he dwindles.
112 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

weakly ; but splendens appears a well-intentioned plant,
with silky silver foliage and fine rosy spikes. The good
species of this race want sun and well-drained lightish
soil; as for the bad ones, nobody cares what they
want.

The Lupines are notable sub-shrubs. Besides the
noble Snow-Queen I grow some beautiful North-Ameri-
cans. Lupinus decumbens has silky -silver leaves and
lovely spikes of soft lilac flowers ; almost equally good is
argenteus. These trail about the rock-work in any light
soil, and, to my joy, seem completely hardy and winter-
proof. As for Lupinus nootkatensis, I don’t know if I have
ever got the true species; all I can say is that if I have,
it is not the thing that my soul covets. For my heart is
set on a most exquisite, minute plant, making dense silvery
cushions about four inches high, with spikes of big azure-
blue flowers, which grows here and there quite commonly
in the highway-sides about Vancouver and Victoria. It
was there I saw and loved it, and collected seed of it
years ago. All the seed germinated; and then all the
seedlings died. What that plant’s name may really
be I cannot tell; I merely guessed that nootkatensis
might suit it, as belonging to that quarter of the world.
I can only say that it is a very astonishingly lovely
thing. Possibly it is a miff; all the Lupines, I think,
dislike excessive damp. They must be well-drained, and
rather dry, to be safe. As for the things I have been
sent for nootkatensis, they are tall, coarse, and, by contrast
with what I wanted, horrid.

Coronilla varia is a weed, only admissible to the wildest,
roughest banks. And, even so, be careful to get a well-
coloured form. For while some Varias are of a brilliant
warm rose, others, the majority, are of various dull and
tepid tones. Coronilla emerus makes a stalwart bush of
yellow blossom, and is not reputed quite hardy. Anyhow
BETWEEN DIANTHUS AND EPILOBIUM 113

two wee seedlings I brought from Cannes a dozen years
ago have so prospered without protection that now they
are stately shrubs. Coronilla iberica is very different
from this—a true rock-plant, neatly trailing, with glau-
cous-green leaves, and bright, bright golden flowers. All
these are sun-lovers, for warm slopes and ledges—where
also our own native Hippocrepis comosa is quite as pretty
as anything the heart could desire.

Of the Hedysarums I have smooth things to say. They
are willing and pretty and full of character (so many of
these Butterflies lack individuality). Hedysarwm obscurum
is a dwarf plant, with silky clumps of leaves, and handsome
heads of crimson ; sibiricum and neglectum are similar,
but, Iam told, and hope to see from my seedlings, even
prettier. Hedysarum muiltijugum is gracious and elegant,
a slight shrub with graceful foliage, and brilliant purplish-
crimson spikes; and H. Mackensii is another shrubby
species from North America, whose growth, as my seedlings
show it, is very promising, and whose flowers are well
spoken of. All the species are of the easiest possible
culture anywhere, though one would not put them too
near the smaller, choicer Alpines.

Orobus, Vicia, and Lathyrus have made a sort of
Witches’ Cauldron of horticultural confusion. The
Vetches may be left aside, though Vicia canescens (or
something that has once borne that name) sounds very
beautiful, if it were procurable. The glorious purple
weed, too, Vicia Cracca, is a fine thing to have established
in a wild spare corner, and even more exquisite is the
frail, pale climber Vicia sylvatica, with spires of softest
china blue-and-white. This I once found rioting in a
glen near Scarborough, and collected seed of, but, alas!
with no result. As for the rest, I have many seedlings
of new sorts, but, of course, am as yet unable to
decide on them. I grow Lathyrus latifolius albus with

H
114 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

pleasure in a very rough place. The common Lathyrus
pratensis is a beautiful yellow pest; and then there is
a rose-red Lathyrus, possibly derived from tuberosus,
bought years ago from Mr. John Wood, that trails about
over my bushes in late summer, a coverlet of salmon-rose
sprays. The smaller red tuberosus I have grown too, if
it be still alive—that pretty little plant which is natura-
lised round Fyfield in Essex. Pubescens I once had seed-
lings of, but they very soon miffed off into a presumably
happier world where the bad plants go to; and magel-
lanicus, I fear, is only an annual, though it was glorious
last year with its big sky-blue flowers. Surely it is the
same as what I saw many years ago at Cannes, called
Lathyrus azureus? I seer to remember the same huge,
winged seed-pods. Orobus and Thermopsis are close
cousins: Thermopsis with big orange or yellow flowers,
Orobus with blue, yellow, rose or white. Orobus (or
Lathyrus) vernus, our own native, is as beautiful as any
—blue and pink and green, all on one plant; then there
are varieties— white, salmon-and-white, double-white, and
so on—all lovely. The nearest to this is niger, almost
indistinguishable, but interesting as being native to one
glen in Scotland. Then comes Orobus lathyroeides, and
the yellow dutews and the orange-tawny awrantiacus.
All these, and others too, are well worth having, and
very easy to grow in any open ground. Unlike the rock-
lovers and the general run of Southern Butterflies, Orobus
and Lathyrus, though disliking stagnant moisture, are far
more patient of ordinary open-border conditions than
most of their kindred. Thermopsis fabacea and Ther-
mopsis rhombifolia are tall, stout Orobuses with green-
yellow flowers—the one European, the other North
American, and good for any place where they can have
room. But of this group (unless you can get hold of Lathy-
rus cyaneus) the best and finest are Orobus hirsutus, and
BETWEEN DIANTHUS AND EPILOBIUM 115

Orobus varius. ‘These are both plants of imperturbable
vigour and hardiness, growing persistently, thriftily on,
in any decent position, even in the open border. Hirsutus
forms ‘a prostrate flopping mass of foliage, covered all
through the summer with a profusion of single wine-
coloured and purple flowers, like big violets. Varius,
erect, slender, graceful, grows about a foot high, has
fine delicate leaves and loose spikes of the loveliest
blossoms, clear-white and salmon-rose, that appear in
early summer.

The Potentillas are beloved by many, but not by me.
In fact, I can muster no love for any Potentilla over six
inches high. Hippiana, pulcherrima, argyrophylla, and
the rest have all been tried, conscientiously admired, and
secretly disliked. Brilliant as they may be, to me they
seem coarse and leafy. However, I hope better things
from fulgens, which has just been given me with high
recommendations. And splendens is small and pretty—a
silver strawberry. These Potentillas have such marvellous
names, all of them — puicherrima, formosa, argentea,
chrysocraspeda, crinita — you expect something after
that; pulcherrima ought to be at least pretty. And no
authoritative work ever describes these people either, so
that when one is working over a catalogue, one has to
go by these awe-inspiring adjectives, and order the plants
they belong to, in the hope that they may not be liars,
these sonorous epithets. But they generally are. Poten-
tilla nitida, however, is certainly a jewel—I seize the
opportunity of repeating its praises—well worthy of its
comparatively modest but truthful name. Other beauties
are the natives verna and alpestris, the double form of
that awful weed, reptans, the silvery Valderia, and a name-
less little white ramper I collected in the Rockies. Other-
wise the long lists of names that swell out Potentilla in
catalogues are too apt to be tall or dowdy plants. The
116 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

real jewels of the race (besides nitida) are two Himalyans,
ambigua, a dwarf runner, with abundance of big golden
flowers; and Tonguwi, frailer, but no less vigorous and
hardy, even in the open ground, with larger flowers of
blended salmon and yellow, recalling the pure and subtle
tones of the Tramonto Rose as you see it on the Ligurian
Riviera.

Of the closely kindred Geums, I have already told of the
dwarf glories, reptans and montanum. Suffice it here to
say that our own North countryman, rivale, with pendu-
lous rosy purple bells, is very pretty, but soon seeds itself
into a perfect pest; bulgaricum is a fraud, with huge
flannelly leaves, and dull flower-heads of a ghostly lemon
colour. Heldreichi and aurantiacum are taller (and there-
fore by me less beloved) orange-red forms of montanum,
Remains only rhaeticum, a gem too long misprized.
Rhaeticum, so robust as to be even a border plant, grows
tall and slender, with graceful leaves; and bears wide
loose heads of large flowers, so brilliant, so golden, that
times without number I have mistaken my plant from
afar for fine specimens of Linum flavum. Until rhaeticum
flowered I looked askance on my seedlings, disliking
gawks; now the plant has come by its own, I make
amends ; I know few things more bright and lovely.

As for Waldsteinia geoeides, this is next door to a
Potentilla, and would be a Potentilla in any less sophisti-
cated age. It runs about wildly all over the place in any
rough ground, no matter how weedy, and bears abundance
of pretty yellow flowers in early spring. The Strawberries,
too, are Potentillas in nearly everything but name, and
the wild Strawberry is always a welcome visitor on my
rougher slopes, where its fruits shine temptingly upon
the wayfarer as he wends up the steep treacherous steps.
Fragaria lucida has lively big white flowers and shiny
leaves, while Fragaria indica is a yellow-flowered trailer ;
BETWEEN DIANTHUS AND EPILOBIUM 117

and the Plymouth Strawberry has odd greenery-yallery
flower-like bracts or petals gone wrong, and is evidently
what Parkinson recommends a gentlewoman to wear on
her sleeve as a curiosity, instead of an ordinary ‘tussie-
mussie.’
118 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

CHAPTER VI

From Cpilobium on through Umbelliferae
and Compositac

As for the big Epilobiums, our native Hirsutwm (the
Codlins and Cream of river-banks) can only be de-
scribed, from the gardener’s point of view, as a devilish
invention. Once, many years ago, in my innocence, I
admitted hirsutum to the Old Garden. No decent words
can express the torments that I have suffered from that
horrible plant ever since. Its great white root-stems go
louping along underground, and when you have massacred
the shoots that have appeared above, you haven’t nearly
accounted for all the dreadful energies that are still lurk-
ing underneath. I leave it to fellow-sufferers, or afflicted
gardeners generally, to imagine my misery. And the
same must be said, too, of Epilobium angustifolium, with
its splendid magenta-crimson spikes. This is a gorgeous
wilding, but it is madness to allow it even into the wild
garden, unless you are prepared to give it a free hand.
The only other Epilobium I have to tell of is a wee New
Zealand creeper that I first saw at Miss Willmott’s, and
afterwards possessed. It has thyme-like leaves, beauti-
fully variegated with silver, and charming little white
flowers. Unfortunately it does not seem to be very
hardy. At least I cannot discover any sign of life in any
of my frame-plants, so that I have but little hope unless
April brings forth a miracle.!

1 No; no miracle; this Zpzlobium is a half-hardy.
UMBELLIFERAE 119

The Evening Primroses, beautiful as they are, are not
among my greatest successes. A drier climate, lighter
soil, and quicker drainage would probably make these
Americans happier. I have tried the pink-white speciosa
again and again (could there be a lovelier thing than
this, or its variety rosea ?), but never with any permanent
good luck. A wet winter overcomes it, and I never see
any more of it. Serrulata, however, seems a trustworthy
plant here; unfortunately I cannot care much for it. I
think its abundant yellow flowers rather small and mean.
Missouriensis, rightly a herbaceous species, prostrate,
with enormous yellow blossoms, is really and honestly
and enduringly prosperous here, which gives me much to
be thankful for. Youngi is good, too, and thrives ;
Howardi, stout seedlings, has made haste to depart.

It is a rare thing to come upon an attractive plant
among the Umbelliferae. But Dondia Epipactis is a
pleasant plant by reason of its quaintness. In early
spring it sends up its glossy sanicle-like leaves, and then,
on a three-inch stem, above the leaves, a queer, little
inconspicuous head of yellow flowers. Dondia prospers
anywhere, but, being small and meek in habit, should
have a choice corner, where he may be trusted not to get
into mischief. Of the larger Umbellifers few can come
into the rock-garden, though on very bold constructions
our native Myrrhis odorata, with vast fern-like fronds, is
very handsome indeed; while the giant Fennels and
Heracleums (Ferula Linki and Heracleum mantegaz-
sianum especially) should also find a place.

The Sea-Hollies, with their steely blue leaves and
flowers, are so well known and such useful border-plants,
that one need hardly describe them or prescribe them.
But I cherished in the moraine-garden one exquisite and
rare little Sea-Holly, who never seems to grow more than
four inches high or so, with small spiny leaves, and bluey-
120 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

gold flower-heads. Eryngium gilaciale, in defiance of its
name, is a Spaniard, and, I believe, very seldom seen.
It was given to me by a kind gardener near Carn-
forth, where it throve in rather a casual place on the
rock-work, and gave fertile seed. I, misled by its minute
appearance and glacial name, planted it reverently in the
moraine. However, it did not take this misguided atten-
tion amiss, for it unfolded its little tufts as complacently
as ever—until ultimately, alas! a slug made, in one night,
an utter end of Eryngium and all my joy together.

The true Eryngium alpinum and its form superbum are
really the very best of the ordinary Sea-Hollies—rare
plants rather, in the Alps, though I have once seen the
type above St. Martin Vesubie. Its huge frilly blue
collar and solid blue flower-head, topping the broidered
blue and silver foliage, give it a Byzantine beauty; other
good kinds, though not better, are Bourgati, planifolium,
and Oliviert. As for the Pandanus-leaved section—
pandanifolium and Serra and so forth, no persuasion can
make me think them anything but ugly,—with their
enormous yucca-like leaves, and their mean little tiny
dull flower-heads on stout promising stems. However, as
‘Formes architecturales’ for bold landscape gardening
these plants no doubt have a value. Only not in
the rock-garden. As for the pretty little Bupleurums,
with their umbels of golden buttercup-like blossoms, I
have never been able either to collect them successfully
hitherto or to raise them from seed. And, with them
expires, I think, the possibilities of the Umbrella-bearers.

The small scattered orders that intervene between the
great horticultural Sahara of Umbelliferae, and the greater
horticultural Sahara of Compositae, give us a good many
valuable things. In the first place, Araliaceae gives us
(beside the minute and fascinating miniature ivy, Hedera
minima) the magnificent ‘Udo,’ Aralia cordata, a common
RUBIACEAE 121

Japanese vegetable (they eat the young shoots, boiled like
Asparagus), one of the most superbient of hardy herbaceous
foliage plants, growing eight feet high or more in the
season, with rich, Ailantus-like foliage, and quite splendid
for any bold commanding point. <Aralia japonica and
Aralia Sieboldii ought to be used in the same way. For
certainly, if you get them from anywhere near Tokio,
they must necessarily be as hardy as daisies.

Asperula Athoa rejoices in many aliases: some call it
suberosa, some athoa, some arcadiensis. At least I have
received one species, always, under these three names. I
like best to think of it as fellow-countryman to Arcadian
Atalanta, snowy-souled, though often, in my garden, must
the plant have repeated its compatriot’s plaint :

*I would that with feet,
Unsandalled, unshod,
Overbold, overfleet,

I had swam not nor trod,

From Arcadia to Calydon northward, a blast
of the envy of God.’

For no matter in how warm, light, and well-drained a nook
you may place this frail southerner, it is always liable to
suffer from winter damps. Not for many summers in suc-
cession will you see those brittle little greyish branches,
crowned with their profusion of long rosy trumpets. How-
ever, my plants are now breaking more robustly than ever,
and, if the slugs can be warned off, will soon be stronger
clumps than before. So that care and cosseting have
this time availed. And who need grudge them to Asper-
ula Athoa? Other pretty Woodruffs are our two natives,
cynanchica and odorata, the first for high and dry
places, the other most admissible to a low, unprofitable
corner out of harm’s way. And close to these comes the
dainty American Bluets, Houstonia coerulea, only a few
inches high, with pale blue stars all the summer through.
122 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

But this, alas! is rather a miff, I don’t know why. Others
may well be luckier than I; but here I have never really
established either coerulea or serpyllifola, although J re-
member how at Kirkstall they grew about under bushes,
in dank ground, just like the commonest of cresses.

Many Valerians are frequently advertised in flaming
terms. I have now bought most of them, in hopes to
find a pretty one; but I never have. I think they are
invariably, big and little, rather coarse dowdy plants.
Arizonica was warmly recommended ; celtica had a senti-
mental interest ; rotundifolia was described as attractive.
But they are every one of them disappointing, with a
good deal of leaf and then dull flattish mounds of very
poor pinky-purply flowers. No more Valerians for me,
then, please! One species, dioica, I think, has little whitish
flower-heads that cover all the wet places about here,
and iniquitously annoy me when I go questing for white
forms of Primula farinosa, perpetually luring me from
afar with their general suggestion of an Albino Primula,
and then when I have scrambled up or down the hill
after them, mocking me with their nasty anemic Valerian-
faces. Almost every rare plant has a sort of protective
Double, I find, who deludes one, and embitters one’s
search. When I ransacked the Devil’s Kitchen above
Llyn Idwal for Lloydia serotina, there were innumerable
nameless little white things that kept putting me off and
setting my heart in a flutter; in the high Alps one is
perpetually shinning up cliffs after Eritrichium, only to
discover Myosotis rupicola, or darting after a white
Gentian, only to find some irritating Mountain Chrysan-
themum or Camomile.

As for Scabious and Teasle, they do not give us very
much. When we get to them we are close under the
shadow of Compositae, and the curse of coarseness that
blights our largest race of flowering plants falls also on
COMPOSITAE 123

the orders nearest to it. But Pterocephalus (or Scabiosa)
Parnassi is a neat and very pretty little Eastern Alpine,
with mounds of greyish leaves, and purply Scabious
flowers hovering freely over them on short stems. An-
other Pterocephalus which I tried from seed has not
turned out very well. The Scabiouses themselves are
useful rather than distinguished. But caucasica is cer-
tainly pretty, and so is japonica, in a bold way, with big
flowers of a really lovely soft lavender-blue.

In all the world there is not another such enormous
race as that of the Composite Flowers, whose three
branches are aptly typified by three of our commonest
weeds, the Daisy, the Dandelion and the Thistle—so that
when even Mr. Robinson admits that in this family one
has to wade through ‘innumerable gawky weeds’ before
coming to any good garden species, it will be understood
how low stands the general level of beauty in this vast
and unprofitable clan. Weeds are the Compositae, one
and almost all; and as weeds they will flourish one and
all in any open reasonable treatment. If any plant has
to be excepted from this rule of easy culture, it will
almost always be on account of some fad about climate.

But, if the generality of Composites are dull, graceless,
and stupid, the comparatively few species that have merit
have a good deal. Let me not be thought ungrateful or
flippant about the beauties of the beautiful Composites.
When you get them they nearly redeem, and quite obli-
terate, one’s memory of their plain relations. Of useful
plants in this race Aster alpinus, I think, easily heads
the list. And a vast number of Asters, I must first
record, are coarse leafy things, washy and poor in colour,
and rank in growth. But the brilliant ones are brilliant
indeed. I have a great love for Aster pyrenacus. And
then there are species like cassiarabicus, kabulicus, F're-
monti, and Townsendi—medium kinds, pleasant and
124 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

useful—Fremonti especially notable from its large, rosy-
purple blossoms. Kabulicus is a woody shrub, and bears
rather pallid stars. Cassiarabicus proves magnificent, a
far more bushy, voluminous, and brilliant Amellus with
profusion of big, deep-purple blooms. Townsendi is a
synonym of Bigelovii, a handsome lilac biennial. Aster
latifolius and Aster canescens are rare, and more usually
known as Machaerantha—the one is glabrous and leafy,
the other silky grey; both bear large gorgeous blossoms
in varying shades of Imperial violet. Camnescens, though
it has survived the winter, is of rather frail, biennial-
looking habit, with one main stem that seems as if it will
only throw lateral growths as a matter of exceptional
courtesy ; Latifolius is more genuinely perennial, but both
are American species and like warm light soil, with very
effectual drainage and as much sun as possible. I have tried
to believe in their hardiness, but they won’t allow me.
Another pretty American is Fendleri, which has made
no great impression on my mind, while yet another
Yankee, Porteri, is a very great friend of mine, neat,
light, and feathery in growth, with showers of small
snowy stars—a robust little plant of exemplary grace and
beauty. Aster diplostephioeides is an obscure species, so
far doubtfully in cultivation. I have seedlings of it on
good authority, which I hope may prove true, but the
plant which has been sold for it of late years is the true
Aster sub-coeruleus, a species no less valuable and very
similar, the main difference lying in the colour of the
eye-florets, which in sub-coeruleus are golden, and in
diplostephioeides bluish. Aster sub-coeruleus makes
masses of handsome foliage in big rosettes, and then, in
June, sends up a number of naked stems about a foot
high or more, each carrying one very large bright violet
flower. It is thus an edition-de-luxe of alpinus, even
more vigorous and less slug-haunted. As for the better-
COMPOSITAE 125

known border Asters—especially the littler ones, and
things like ereicoeides and dumosus and their varieties—
they need hardly be recommended.

My own joy among the larger Asters is acris, with its
fleecy cloud-masses of soft purple, lying across the upper
garden like a mist of colour through late summer and
autumn. Acris I remember in the south of France, a
wiry-leaved dry-ground plant, with abundance of tiny
ragged flowers, inexpressibly airy and delightful. In
cultivation it never gets coarse, but blossoms with wild
generosity, and divides endlessly in spring. I have just
got a roseus and an albus variety—but without any hope
that they can possibly surpass, or even equal, the fairy-
like type. Aster Linosyris is a graceful native, dis-
tinguished by abundant yellow flowers, from which there
is now a hybrid Asterolinosyris Willmottiae, which I have
hastened to procure, feeling hopeful that so high and
august a name would not be lavished on an undeserving
plant (yet what of Jris willmottiana and Lilium Bur-
banki?). Aster sibiricus I have had for years, without
ever having much affection for; so far I have found him
a medium-sized plant, but a rampant spreader, with large
but rather ragged and ineffective deep-lilac flowers.

After Aster may come their miniatures the Daisies.
The Swiss giant Daisy, Bellidiastrum Michelii, I have
grown and lost and never replaced. It is a huge version
of the common Daisy, and not, I thought, worth any
extravagant fuss. Then there is the so-called blue
Morocco-Daisy, like our own, but more graceful, and
with flowers in varying shades of very pale blue. This
lovely little creature is unmistakably half-hardy here—
at least has always proved so in all the positions we have
ever tried for it, though in light, hot soils in southern
gardens it may be more persevering. Bellis sylvestris I
have doubts of. Under this name I have grown on from
126 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

seed a fat, stalwart plant, exactly like a fine common
species, but with flowers which, though on some specimens
indistinguishable from the ordinary Daisy, are on others of
a bright crimson. Now I know the true sylvestris is said
to be red-flowered, but the question is whether my plant,
considering its reversions to the ordinary whites of Bellis
perennis, is more than an unusually bright-coloured strain
of the common Daisy. Bellium minutum is the treasure
of this group—a wee, wee plant, like a Daisy looked at
through the wrong end of a telescope—a most fascinat-
ing miniature of a thing. This is a rare Levantine, and
is delicate unless you give him a dry, hot corner, with the
sharpest possible drainage.

The Alpine Yarrows and Camomiles are plants I am
rather conscientious about than enthusiastic. ‘Too often,
as in Achillea atrata, and its congeners, the white is of
an unworthy, dirty tone; even in moschata and the
purer colours, the white is apt to be very hard and dead
and cold. There is something, too, a little weedy and
ill-bred about the look of the plants—an astonishing
thing for species so high-Alpine. But Clavennae and
Jaborneggi and Kellereri are really beautiful—each with
silver-white leaves and heads of more or less brilliant
blossoms. Achillea serbica is a rare new plant, forming
mats of grey-leaved branches and large flowers of a rather
cold grey-white. But, among my importation bloomed
one most lovely silver-leaved plant with larger flowers,
pure and snowy. I hope to see more of this, if the
winter has not alienated him beyond reconciliation. As
for the larger Yarrows, honestly, I find them all ‘ gawky
weeds. Mongolica and ptarmica, ‘the Pearl,’ are very
well for a rough border, so, perhaps, is the red version of
the common méilefolium—if you do not dread the risk
of a possible pest. But as a class, these plants are far
too coarse for the choice rock-garden, and not beautiful
‘*CHILDREN OF THE MIST.”
SAXIFRAGA BURNATI AND SAXIFRAGA COCHLEARIS.

 
COMPOSITAE 127

enough even for the higher wilder banks. I imported
sericea With a great deal of excitement one year from the
East, but it turned out a huge, silky-leaved, golden-
flowered edition of the common Yarrow. But of Achillea
the name is legion; learned catalogues are swelled out
with columns of them. I have no inclination to specialise
on this race, and I am sceptical as to the beauty or dis-
tinctness of many of those recorded—however an Achillea-
enthusiast, if any such there be, must go bravely on
experimenting, in hopes to acquire unsuspected loveliness.
So far as I know, all the Yarrows are easy to grow,
though perhaps the glacial sorts may give trouble.

Close to Achillea, and only a little more attractive, are
the Alpine Camomiles. Anthemis aeizdon, I must heartily
acknowledge, is a very beautiful plant indeed, with
rosettes of silver-white-pinnate leaves, and abundance of
pure, snowy Marguerites, large and brilliant. Biebersteini
is an Oriental, rather coarser, with big yellow flowers,
that everybody else seems to admire a great deal more
than I can. This race, again, looms large in catalogues ;
but I have never found an Anthemis to beat aeizéon, so
perfectly easy and hardy that it is a pleasure to sit and
look at its silver cushions. Pyrethrum is a race more
famous in borders than in the rock-garden, but I have
(or had, for the winter seems to have killed it), a Pyre-
thrum densum, neat and pretty, with lovely silver-woolly-
pinnate leaves and dull yellow flowers; while Pyrethrum
transylvanicum is so new here that I can only commend
its beautiful white foliage and pretty habit. Chamaemelon
caucasicum is a ferny-leaved trailing little cousin of the
Camomiles, with white Camomile flowers, not by any
means particularly attractive or remarkable. Chrysogonum
virginianum is a very free-growing dwarf plant, with
abundance of golden yellow flowers, which I have never
been able to help thinking rather mean in colour and
128 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

build. However it is an easy doer, and a favourite with
many people, though it no longer finds a place on my
rock-gardens. Amphiocarpus Neumeyeri is a strange hardy
plant—and where I got it I do not know. Its attraction
is the tuft of oval-pointed silver leaves ; the small flowers,
when they come, are rather dowdy. The Antennarias
are best represented by our own precious little native,
Antennaria dioica—a creeping weed, but very valuable for
a waste bank, with small hoary leaves and chaffy little
heads of white or rose-pink like a wee everlasting.

Of the Thistles, what gardener wants to be reminded?
‘Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem. I once, re-
gardless of wisdom and warnings, had Carduwus eriophorus,
from seed collected on cliffs near Scarborough; but this
giant of his race died out after flowering, and I have
never replaced him, fearful lest a worse thing befall me.
For, of the two alternatives, reproduction or extinction,
the gardener will certainly be thankful for extinction
where most of the Thistles are concerned. The one excep-
tion is Onopordon bracteatum, who sins in the opposite
direction. For Onopordon bracteatum—so beautiful that
there is no need ever again to think of any other Ono-
pordon, makes huge rosettes of crinkled spiny leaves,
brilliant silver grey, with veins of pure silver. And when
the vast candelabra of rather inferior purple flowers has
been sent up and matured, the whole thing dies, and
there are you, planté la, with the Onopordon to raise again
from the very beginning from seed. However, for high,
bold places on the rock-work, Onopordon is eminently
worth the trouble; and his seed has, at least, the virtue
of germinating freely.

Carduncellus is a wee thing, like a small blue-purple
Thistle, quite close to the ground, who is attractive in
any barren place ; while Carlina acaulis isa very beautiful
Alpine, which you will see in August and September, all
COMPOSITAE 129

over the sunny, dry pastures—its wide silver and white
blossoms lying tight on their thorny rosettes, and looking
like Water-lilies of silver tissue. In cultivation, however,
the plant wants quite poor, miserable soil or else it gets
coarse, developing a stem, and enlarging its leaves at the
cost of its brilliancy. The variety acanthifolia I have
always thought much less fine, for the same reason—that
it is stalky, and not stemless. Our own Carlina vulgaris
is near these two, but lacks the whiteness of blossom.
The Saussureas look like little blue Thistles that have
been packed up in cotton wool and got it inextricably
twined among their flowers. They are not all distinct,
but the one I grow as candicans is distinctly pretty. As
for Cacalta and Brickellia, 1 mention them here merely as
warnings. I bought them on the most flaring descrip-
tions from America, and I can solemnly affirm that as far
as my own taste goes, I do not think that even England pro-
duces two more totally graceless, dingy, overgrown weeds
than Cacalia tuberosa and Brickellia grandiflora—this
last, especially, of a dowdy gawkiness beyond expression :
and even more tragic is my tale of Myrrhiactis Wallichi,
which I got seed of from the Him4lya, and grew on in a
perfect flutter of excitement, foreseeing promise of marvel-
lous beauty, in its name—for surely nothing named for
Wallich could be poor. Myrrhiactis prospered like a
weed—whole framefuls of little pots. At last its in-
numerable flower-stems swelled up and budded. Then the
flowers opened. They were like small groundsel-blossoms,
with the outer rays entirely omitted. Myrrhiactis de-
parted over the garden wall.

The big blue Ball-Thistles are rather border- than
rock-garden plants; however, I rejoice over Echinops
ruthenicus in a bold corner; and now am expecting even
better things from my seedlings of the dwarfer-growing
Echinops humilis, Another huge great plant is Si/jphium

I
130 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

terebinthinaceum. If any one is bold enough to order this,
they will find it handsome, with very tall stems carrying
big Helianthus-like flowers, while the leaves at the base
of the plant are fine and effective. However, it is nota
patch on a good Helianthus, 1 must confess. Of the
Rudbeckias I don’t grow any more now—ever since I was
irritated by Lepachys columnaris, which had futile, pale
yellow daisies, with a silly sort of snout cocking up in
the middle. The Mulgediums or Giant Lettuces are very
splendid things though—to be admitted with caution
into the garden. The biggest and most robustious is
Mulgediwm Plumieri, which nothing can hold in bounds.
He is a glorious wild-garden, or rough bank plant, de-
vouring yards and yards each season, and covering them
with big hairy leaves whose underside is rusty purple.
Then, in August, up go the stout flower stems six or
eight feet high, carrying heads of blossom like large
violet Dandelions. My thianshanicum is similar, but
bluer in flower, and much milder in growth, forming a
nice, neat, glossy clump, that never seems to spread about
or grow greedy.

But the prettiest Mulgedium in my garden is Bourgaei,
which makes one dense crown that gets denser and denser
every season without any further spread. The abundant
flowers are smaller than those of Plumieri, and carried in
long lax sheaves. Their colour is of a peculiarly delicate
and beautiful rosy blue—very gentle and soft, yet quite
pure and decided in tone. Prenanthes is a quaint thing,
vaguely recalling a starved Mulgedium, but even more like
an Oat which, by some strange miracle, has developed
tiny violet flowers. This queer creature inhabits all the
Swiss mountain woods, and neither my manager nor I
profess any wild affection for it ; however, it deserves my
gratitude for the happy way in which it has taken
possession of a very barren place under a Laurus Tinus in
COMPOSITAE 131

the Old Garden—above whose glossy leaves its little
purplish clouds come hovering indomitably each July.
Adenostyles marks a doubt in my mind. I believe that
the plant I got with great effort from shady rocks near
Rosenlaui is not, as I had always thought, an Adenostyles,
but really the true Mulgedium alpinum, a beautiful tall
plant, with blue Dandelion flowers, of which Plumieri is
an exaggerated variety. As for the genuine Adenostyles
—the stout pink thing, with triangular leaves, white
underneath, that you find in the high pastures of Switzer-
land, is Adenostyles alpina—not a very interesting species,
and one that I have never bothered to collect—while the
only plant of the Dandelion group I have ever liked is the
white form of the common Dandelion itself, which grows
all over Tokio to the exclusion of the yellow type. Now
I have seed of this, and hope it may prove true.

Of the Centaureas very few are really beautiful, I
think, though several are interesting for sterile banks.
Montana is quite useful thus, in all its varieties, and I
grow also rutaefolia—a straggler, with whitish leaves
and pretty, red flowers; and also another white plant,
ragusina compacta. 'The Golden Rods, to me, are all
coarse and quite unworthy of culture, without exception ;
and the Hawkweeds, even, though pretty, are too dangerous
to admit. But valdepiloswm is attractive, and so is auwran-
tiacum, but a dreadful irrepressible weed.
132 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

CHAPTER VII
DME Dad Creasures

Ler others specialise on Sedum and Sempervivum. I
frankly confess that I approach these two great races
with hesitation. I have never been able to take more
than a mild fancy for even the prettiest of Sedums.
Justice must be done, though, even if deliberately, and I
will place it solemnly on my record that the average
Stonecrops are useful, easy-going inhabitants of the
rockery, if kept in due bounds. Having said so much I
will add my own personal sentiment, which is the same
for Sedum as for Draba—a mere recognition of merit,
uncoupled with any warmer feeling. The Stonecrops
nearly all thrive anywhere, and are typical rock-plants,
with the one exception of our own dear little marsh
plant, the most charming species of the family—Sedum
villosum, found in small colonies here and there in wet
places on the high moors round the base of Ingleborough.
Sedum album has white flowerheads, and is a rare native of
attractive appearance. It turns out an appalling weed,
which one throws away in cartloads without ever suc-
ceeding in eradicating (my whole stock sprang from
two crushed sprigs sent me in a letter: two years later I
was weeding up barrow-loads of it without effect). Sedum
anglicum is another rare little native, much neater and
smaller, white-flowered and of modest habit and glaucous-
blue leaves—perhaps the prettiest of all Sedums for
OF ODD TREASURES 133

the rock-garden. We may also include Sedum dasy-
phyllum, and Sedum brevifolium, a really beautiful tiny
species, with fat blue foliage. (Pottsi is the name under
which I had this, but what Pottsi may mean, or who
Potts is—unless he is the unique gentleman who said he
admired Johnson’s Jrene,—I have no notion.)

Equally pretty are my Sedum lydium and my S. Ewersi
turkestanicum, this last rather larger, prostrate, with
ovate, variegated leaves and pretty pink heads. Cor-
sicum is neat, and supposed to be a form of dasyphyllum,
and farinosum a form of album. Rhodanthum and
aeizdon I am growing on from seed. But the larger
Stonecrops lack individuality in my mind—they are
furniture rather than inhabitants of the garden.

Of the larger Sedums Ingleborough provides me with
Sedum Rhodiola, the herbaceous Rose-root, with stout
woody root-stock, and stiff stems of glaucous leafage and
dull yellow flowers. The name comes from the scent of
the root, which, in the wild plants, is like that of an old
Damask rose. Sedum spurium, a prostrate mass, with
broad heads of white and pink, ramps in every cottage-
garden; Sedwm kamschaticum, with a variegated form, is
virtually an orange-coloured spurium ; Sedum Telephium,
with tall, dingy crimson heads, is a useful, uninteresting
native; Sedum spectabile, with its enormous blue leaves
and ample cauliflowers of rosy blossom in late autumn is
equally familiar. It is a splendid thing, beloved of bees
and butterflies, though its colour has a chalky tone that
makes it perfectly ghastly anywhere within a mile of any
good crimson, scarlet, or yellow. Sedum scwangulare and
Sedum rupestre are natives, the first common, and the
second extremely rare, but not easily distinguishable from
each other; both thrive on any wall, and have heads of
golden flowers which, in the similar Sedum pulchellum, are
of asoft pink. Unfortunately Sedum pulchellum, otherwise
134 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

a very attractive kind—seem to have a biennial constitu-
tion, or at all events a tendency to miff away. Sedum
oregonum and Sedum spathulatum are closely related—
medium-sized plants, distinctly attractive, with glaucous
or glossy spathulate leaves, which in the solendens-forms
of oregonum, are of a gorgeous blood-red. And, in con-
clusion, I must disclaim any authority for the names I
give. They are reported as I have had them; I believe
them to be trustworthy, but I have never yet specialised
on the Sedums, and I think it unlikely that I ever shall.

The same may be said of Sempervivum—but in a very
different, sad, contrite spirit. If I were certain of two
hundred years of life, I would begin specialising on the
Sempervivums to-morrow. But one’s life is short, and one’s
horticultural interests many. It is not possible to run so
many horses abreast !—if there were room in one’s days
for all one’s enthusiasms, I would specialise on Iris, Tulip,
Lily, Sempervivum, Saxifrage, Odontoglossum, Gentian,
Primula, and goodness knows how many charmers more
all at once. But, as things stand, a wretched writer of
books, who is also a worshipper of Orchids, as well as a
slave of the plants, and an amateur of all stray expensive
lovelinesses to boot, must perforce put a rein on some, at
least, of his possible fanaticisms; for, if pain follows on
desire as certainly as the wheel follows the foot of the ox
that draws the cart, so do bills inexorably dog the path
of all who let themselves be snared by the delight of the
eyes. Therefore I will hasten on past Sempervivum with
a shamefaced, sidelong glance, adding nothing to what I
said earlier, apropos of S. arachnoideum.

I have already dealt with the small Phyteumas, but
there are some of the larger kinds which come well into
the garden.

The others most desirable are Charmelit, Scheuchzeri,
and orbiculare. Of these I pin most of my affection to
OF ODD TREASURES 135

Scheuchzeri, a neat, thrifty thing, about a foot high or so,
with round heads of deep blue bottles. The others are
similar, but a trifle less distinguished. All these plants
are very easy to deal with, and, I think, prefer rather
moister treatment than the others, in shady corners of the
rock-work. My best Scheuchzeri was collected by me
once, without my knowledge, in a clump of Anemone
narcissifiora that I consoled myself with one barren
dreary afternoon on the Schynige Platte above Inter-
laken. It was already late autumn, and everything was
over, and all the mountain-panorama was cold and cloudy
and grey. But I saw the Anemone’s leaves, and made
good the lost day by grubbing him up. And when the
clump was well-established in the old garden, lo and
behold, it consisted not only of the Anemone but also of
Phyteuma Scheuchzeri, Geranium sylvaticum, and the
little Snow-Crocus. Now for many years they have been
fighting the matter out between them, and I am inclined
to put my money on the Phyteuma, which seems to be
crowding the others out one by one. The Geranium will
very likely go soon; the Crocus, I believe, has gone; the
Anemone shall never go, if I have to redress the balance
of the world by making an artificial clearing in the midst
of the Phyteuma.?

As for Phyteuma orbiculare, his round heads of deep
blue on their tall stems may be seen here and there in
our south-country meadows. On the Ruff above
Abinger, for instance, he grows all over the place—nor
need one have any scruple about saying so, for, first of all,
the plant abounds there, and, in the second, the man, nor
the million men, have not yet been born, who could
eradicate a flourishing Phyteuma. Such a silly name to

1 Latest news: The Phyteuma has abruptly, irrelevantly expired, like
Salammbé, in the very hour of victory: the Geranium and the Anemone
now have to fight an internecine duel.
136 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

give the poor things—just The Plant! As for the
Michauxias (how can an ordinary person be expected to
pronounce this ?—‘ Me-show-ia’ is right, but is beyond
most people; the name usually emerges as My-corks-ia),
they are tall things, more or less biennial, with panicles
of reflexed flowers like tiny blue Panther lilies in general
effect. Campanulocides has not done much good, but
Michauzxia Tchihatchewi (there’s the worst name in the
garden) is a handsome-leaved grey person, who thrives
persistently in a warm, well-drained nook; both are
easterners, hating mould.

The Thrifts are rather respectable than beautiful.
Tall, giant Armeria Cephalotes is very splendid if you get
him in a good shade of pink, bright and warm. For he
varies in colour, from seed, and, besides, is more than a
little of a miff—dying out suddenly under a heavy rain,
if your climate be chilly and wet, or your soil too heavy.
However, while he lives he thrives heartily, and so
escapes the reproach of being a mimp. For a miff is a
plant which, in the midst of seeming life, is in death, and
expires abruptly; a mimp is one that for ever hangs on
the edge of death, trailing a sickly existence towards in-
evitable extinction. Thus Gentiana verna in too many
gardens is a mimp; Myosotis rupicola is a miff. Of the
other Thrifts, the only one to trouble with is Armeria
caespitosa, a tiny, furry little ball from blazing rock-clefts
in Provence, thickly covered, in spring, with globes of
pale rosy flowers. This is lovely, if not brilliant, but
wants careful watching, perfect drainage, and a warm, dry
corner where damp may never lodge round its crown.
Our own Armeria plantaginea is a dull, reduced edition of
Cephalotes, and any varieties advertised as brighter are
certain to be only of a more tedious because more pro-
nounced magenta than the type.

The Acantholimons, however, are the most delightful of
OF ODD TREASURES 137

plants in every way—neat and thrifty and brilliant—
cousins of the pallid Thrifts though they be. Probably
the old glimaceum remains the best—making mats of
spiny cushions in any decent, hot place, and then sending
up spikes of bright rosy blossoms, like very large thrift-
flowers, each arranged singly, in a chaffy bract. My
other species, venustwm and androsacewm, are much rarer
in gardens, and even more beautiful, though slower in
growth, and, perhaps, a little choicer in requirements.
The leaves of venustum are glaucous grey, and the flowers
are much bigger than those of glwmaceum, and of a lovely
bright pink; the flowers of androsaceum have more
purple. All the Acantholimons hail from hot ranges like
Lebanon, and in cultivation like a sunny-corner, light
soil, and a high, well-drained position; in which cir-
cumstances they show themselves pleasantly hardy and
accommodating.

Two other sun-lovers with whom, on the contrary, I
have had a good deal of bother, are those two glorified
Portulacas, Lewista rediviva and Lewisia Tweedyi. 'Yhese
are both Americans, and want sun and drought and
drainage, so that I might have expected difficulty with
them. However, rediviva has done very fairly well,
with its odd habit—a reminiscence of the deadly desert-
summer, I suppose—of dying off most wretchedly into a
withered mass, and then (just when you are on the point
of throwing away the corpse in disgust) of breaking quite
happily again, with a quantity of rosy Mesembryan-
themum-like flowers. Lewista Tweedyi is very much more
beautiful, however, with leafy rosettes, that look like
some succulent evening Primrose, and then, on stems
about four or five inches high, large flowers of an iri-
descent creamy-pink, such as you see in certain Tea
Roses. In the open this plant has been an utter failure
here—any touch of undue damp seeming to rot its stout
138 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

fleshy root-stock immediately. Nor, to console myself, do
I imagine that many people in England are so favoured
as to find Lewisia Tweedyi a really sound, trustworthy,
outdoor plant. For pots, perhaps; but for the rock-
garden it is useless to cope with plants who fly beyond
any mere soil-requirement, and want you to alter the
entire climate of the country before they ’ll condescend to
thrive.

Primula, Gentiana, and Androsace are races far too
great to be huddled together without distinct and definite
treatment, but they each have a number of smaller clans
dependent on them, which give us a few good and one or
two brilliant plants. The Cyclamens come first, of course,
and what uninitiated person is there who would believe
that these are reckoned cousins-german to Primula?
They don’t need detailed discussion, although so charm-
ing, so I will only say that autumn-blooming Cyclamen
europaeum is the most delightful of plants for naturalising
in light, loose woodland, while Cyclamen repandum is very
bright among the toughest grasses, with its fine flowers
of a rather fierce magenta-crimson. The most beautiful
of all, to my mind, is the new and very rare Cyclamen
libanoticum—a dear little plant of the large-flowered,
spring-blooming section, with beautiful fleshy leaves, and
abundance of big, fragrant, peachy-pink blossoms—a trea-
sure from high glens of Libanos, which prospers with me
in sheltered places under Cistus Laurifolius and big
Daphnes. Cyclamen coum, the wee winter-bloomer, I have
never cared for—the flowers are so preposterously small
and dull; nor have I collected Cyclamens long enough
for any discussion of the many confusing names that fog
the race; ewropaeum, neapolitanum, and hederaefolium
being all very close together, if not mere varieties or
synonyms; while vernum does duty for repandum, and
ibericum with its form Atkinsi are twins to coum.
OF ODD TREASURES 139

A very difficult thing to establish, as far as my experi-
ence goes, is the rare and dainty Chickweed Winter Green,
Trientalis europaea, which I collected once, very carefully
and perfectly (it is quite easy to collect), from woods in
East Yorkshire. And yet, though given every care,
those plants never did any good with me, and all subse-
quent attempts to grow Trientalis europaea, or its
stronger brother americana, resulted in dead failure.
And then, two years ago, where no Trientalis was or
should have been, up a Trientalis came, full in the middle
of my big Pyrola rotundifolia. Now, had it lain dormant
in the clump ever since the Pyrola was collected—or was
it simply a wandering little white sheep from the black
flock of Trientalis that had all died off years before?
And, if so, what had persuaded it to better thoughts, or
made it take shelter under the wing of Pyrola, where I
had never dreamt of putting it? And, now that it has
come, it reappears again each season, and always stronger
than before. TJrientalis is so very pretty that I earnestly
hope he will always continue coming—a whorl of small,
rounded, glossy leaves on a five-inch stem, and then,
springing up on even frailer foot-stalks, one or two starry,
white flowers, rather like a fairyfied Chickweed, as its
common name implies.

The cousinship of the Primulas closes here (for Anagallis
tenella belongs to the bog), and, before I go on to the
relations of the Gentians, I must make the amende
honorable to two or three plants that I had forgotten.
The first of these is Hriogyna pectinata, a tiny, trailing
collateral of the Saxifrages, who, with fine, ferny foliage,
throws long rooting runners about in shady corners of the
rock-work, with small spikes of blossom like tiny spiraeas.
Then comes Convolvulus: be very wary of that loveliest
and worst of weeds, C. arvensis, whose rosy, wide trum-
pets may plead with you for a welcome. Admit it: in
140 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

a year your soil will be packed tight with the matted
macaroni of its dreadful roots, and you will never, never
be clear of it again, for it is worse than Goutweed, worse
than Willow-herb, worse even than Coltsfoot itself. Con-
voloulus Soldanella, from our own shingles, has not made
any show here; and, saddest tale of all, mauritanicus,
fragile trailer, with wreaths of azure megaphones, is not of
certain hardiness here, though eleven miles off, in West-
moreland, plants from my own garden mock at me by
their brilliant persistence. Yet again, more beautiful
than even this must be that very notable rock-plant
C. sabatius, found only in one place in the whole world—
between the crannies of the Cape of Nola, on the Riviera.
Here also, and here only, lives Campanula floribunda, and
I have never possessed either. However, let us hope the
Campanula has no special merit, enters into no rivalry
with my two prized novelties, raddeana and amabilis. Rad-
deana has proved itself a perfect jewel—lovely, delicate,
exquisite, with showers of purple hairbells, and a charm-
ing, persistent habit of increasing from year to year.
Amabilis is much larger, pleasant as its name; a stout
rosette, with three foot spires, loose and graceful, of big
shallow cups, soft blue, with a dark purple eye.

Of the Acanthuses I have the Jatifolius variety of
mollis, the most splendid of all foliage plants, not except-
ing the huge Gunneras and Giant Rhubarbs. But mollis
is not quite happy here, at least not as rampant as in
rather softer places. In Westmoreland and the Lake-
country, that soaking Himalya-paradise for the gardener,
it makes glorious glossy banks, which are as admirable as
anything I know. Here it thrives quite sufficiently, but
not, so far, with any wild enthusiasm. However, the
Acanthus needs time to establish himself, so I still nourish
hope. Then I have Candelabrum, reputed a fine, sturdy
kind, and a dwarf species called roseus, Perringi, or Caroli
OF ODD TREASURES 141

Alexandri, This is hardy and vigorous, quite small and
low in leaf, with a very stodgy, important-looking spike
of pinkish flowers about a foot high or more. Except
for its quaintness and rarity, I do not think this a very
wonderful plant; it has not the choice brilliancy of an
Alpine, while it has lost the tropical grandeur of the
typical Acanthus.

Glossocomia, Codonopsis, and Cyananthus are cousins of
the Campanulas, which deserve a place to themselves.
I will not pretend to distinguish between the indistin-
guishable Glossocomia and Codonopsis. They are flaccid,
rather loose-growing herbaceous things, with nodding, big
bells of blossom, which vary infinitely from one packet of
seed ; the prettiest, very pretty indeed, of a soft green-blue,
with brilliant, many-coloured gold and blue markings
inside. The most frequently grown plant is called ovata,
but I believe the true ovata is very rare in cultivation,
and I am anxiously awaiting flowers from the seed of it
that was given me last season. Then there are two or
three other species or forms, of which I am rearing seed-
lings, of viridiflora, ussuriensis, and Tang-sheng. They
are all quite hardy, and ought to be planted high, high
up on the rockery, so that their pendent bells with the
quaint interior markings can nod down at you in all their
delicate beauty.

And now we come to a. race indispensable beyond all
other indispensables for the rock-garden. For who will
deny this claim to the dwarf Phloxes, to the innumerable
cheerful family of setosa and subulata? Of the species
I grew caroliniana, a vigorous trailer that runs about all
over the place, in any ordinary loam, sending up heads
of rosy pink flower, large and bright even in the late
autumn, after a gorgeous display in the spring. Piélosa
and Douglasi are rather rare, sand-loving plants, very
pretty and choice, but not making any attempt to rival
142 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

subulata in vigour or effectiveness. Stellaria is a beauti-
ful lax trailer, like a rather large subulata, making mossy
cascades down the rock-work, with abundance of very pale
French-grey flowers—a delicate, soft shade extremely
attractive. The form erubescens I cannot quite place in
my memory. I do not think it can be any improvement
on Stellaria.

Amoena and pretty ovata, as far as my garden knows
them, are both bright and pleasant little plants, creeping
and ramping over the ground, though I cannot at present
accurately and definitely be certain which is really which,
and how they are each distinguished (if at all) from the
other. One dwarf Phlox that I have as nivalis is a
wonder of loveliness—close to Nelsoni, that snowy carpet-
marvel, and actually sustaining the comparison. And,
very similar, to be distinguished only by their rivalry in
beauty, are all those matchless garden-carpets, the chil-
dren of subulata—Daisy Hill, Vivid, llacina, annulata,
and the countless other sisters of Nelsoni. My favourite
of all, perhaps, is the beautiful Phlor divaricata—a
medium-habited thing, making a bush about a foot or
eighteen inches (dwarfer and more compact in Perry’s
Laphami-form of the synonymous canadensis). The
flowers are very large, like Periwinkles in size and colour
and shape, borne in wide loose heads, and scented exactly
like Liktwm auratum. The cool, soft blue of this Phlox
makes the most glorious contrast imaginable with the
ardent splendour of the orange-vermilion Double Welsh
Poppy. And the Phlox is as vigorous and easy as the
Poppy with which it goes so well. In colour it has a
rival in subulata G. F’. Wilson (or lilacina), a fine rug of
moss, which is covered in early summer with such a
multitude of clear, electric-blue stars that all other Subu-
lata Phloxes are put to shame, and even Nelsoni has to
look to its laurels. But Phlox Vivid, though small-
OF ODD TREASURES 143

flowered, has blossoms of a rich, hot, salmon-scarlet, and,
combined with the moonlit blue of G. F. Wilson and the
snowy chastity of Nelsoni, makes an unsurpassable tri-
colour of the most subtle yet blazing beauty—the more
so that the other rosy Phloxes have a taint of magenta.

The large Natural Order of the Borages provides me
with a good number of easy things and a good number
of difficult ones too. To deal with the worst of these
first—there is only one Lithospermum, so far as I can
discover, that is really and truly a limestone plant.
Alas that I have never had the chance of proving Litho-
spermum erythrorhizon, whose big round flowers make the
copses below Nikko into the reflection of a cloudless sky
at dawn! Lithospermum graminifolium grows here very
affably, but too many of the others pine and languish,
even if I give them peat-soil and all the luxuries that
heart can desire. Among the languishers is azure pro-
stratum—rich in colour as any Gentian—that is such a
Meibuts’ of sandy, Surrey gardens; as well as petraeum
and the dazzling, half-hardy rosmarinifoltum from sun-
baked sea-cliffs by Amalfi—so that of their beauty,
therefore, I dare not trust myself to tell, lest, like the
bereaved Achilles, I should speak the unhusbanded truth,
and melt into wild lamentations. But graminifolium is
a very dear and gracious plant, with many prostrate
branches, each terminating in a grassy rosette that sends
up in June a nodding head of lovely pale blue, tubular
flowers—in fact, though this plant has not the awful
brilliancy of the celestial Lithospermums, I console myself
by believing that it has even more tenderness of charm.
And the way it grows is a pure joy.

With intermedium, a hybrid, I believe, of graminifolium,
I have had success; the lovely Gasténi does well here ;
and purpureo-coeruleum, the rare Welsh native, is a fine
ramping thing, which has, at last, I don’t know why, died
144 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

out with me after firmly refusing to flower through many
years of luxuriant growth. I first collected its big heads
of sapphire trumpets in a copse near Cannes, and in many
a cool, shady glen of Liguria will you come unexpectedly
on its glory of blue. To my surprise, the American
yellow Lithospermums have been a moderate success
with me—multiflorum, canescens, longiflorum, and hirtum
making herbaceous, sturdy little bushes, with abundance
of golden blossoms, in any light, sunny place. Add to
these the lovely common Prophet-flower, with its black-
spotted, canary-yellow blooms like big cowslips, pro-
duced perpetually—and the Lithospermums, with their
cousins, do not do so badly by me after all;—and Arnebia
echioeides is one of the most brilliant of easy beauties for
either border or rock-work, in any rich soil, well-drained.

The Onosmas are opulent hairy creatures, with white,
golden, or crimson bugles, that hang from the uncurling,
crozier-like spikes. They are all Southerners, peering
down from the ruins of Byzantine castles or Saracenic
fortifications, and, it stands to reason, hairiness and
habitat considered, are quite unsuited to a cool, wet
climate. However, the best of all, the well-known
Golden Drop, Onosma tauricum, is very satisfactory here,
and even more so, of course, in gardens that rejoice in a
drier, colder winter. Glorious, indeed, is a mass of this
all through the summer, with up-curling spikes thick
hung with long drops of pure amber. Similar is the
white form, but more delicate; as also is rare Onosma
albo-roseum, whose bells are of white and pink—a lovely,
tender plant. Of Onosma Thurberi and O. Thompsoni I
speak doubtfully. I flowered O. Thurberi last year and
found it a fraud—a biennial, with a stout, podgy spike,
set with dull little red flowers.

Of the remaining Borages the true Lungworts never
move me to much enthusiasm. The Spotted Dog or
OF ODD TREASURES 145

Jerusalem Cowslip of cottage gardens I even dislike, with
its liverish-looking leaves, and its feeble, purply-red
flowers. But the unspotted variety, azwrea, with deep
sky-blue flowers, is beautiful; and so is our own very
rare native Pulmonaria angustifolia, which I collected
years ago in Dorsetshire woods—a plant of slight growth,
with narrow, spotted foliage and large flowers of a very
rich pure sapphire. ‘Then there is a pretty blue-
flowered arvernensis, and a white variety which is small-
blossomed and dowdy in effect ; while Pudmonaria rubra,
despite the real charm and brilliancy of its rosy bells,
must be looked after and frequently divided if it is to be
kept floriferous and showy. And, even so, it has rather
too much leaf as compared with the flowers. However,
it is very pretty, and all the Pulmonarias bloom while the
garden is still rather dead and sere; so, for this, as well
as for their invariable good temper, we must love and
cherish them, as well as two near relatives of theirs,
Cynoglossum apenninum and Cynoglossum pictum, with
showers of bright blossom, sound, sturdy growers for a
backward corner, where such splendid things as the
Dropmore variety of the Italian Anchusa can be put.

Of all inconsiderable and dowdy weeds the Fig-worts
are the least worthy to give their name to a very large
race, which, while it is more generous in larger than in
small plants, is yet of great importance in the rock-garden ;
for, though, setting aside Linaria, Pentstemon, and
Veronica, there are no big clans of brilliant plants among
the Scrophularinae, yet there are a certain number of
valuable species cropping up here and there by themselves.
Otherwise this Order leads worthily on to the dull desola-
tion of Labiatae, though I know this is an unpopular
view to take, and that nowadays it is good form to say
that all plants are lovely, and that Nature can never be
either dull or plain. However, one must abide by one’s

K
146 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

own convictions, and I will honestly say that Nature not
only can be both, but very frequently chooses to be so ;
so that real treasures are in an inconsiderable minority.
As for the exalted truth that the emancipated mind can
see beauties in Groundsel or Deadnettle, not for one
moment will I deny it. But its prophets in popular
literature seem too often to speak academically, as wor-
shippers of the ideal, rather than as horticulturists with
actual earthly, earthy gardens to cultivate; and as my
book, no less than my garden, aims at dealing simply with
the cultivation of obviously beautiful, interesting plants, I
will reverently waive aside for the time this abstract doc-
trine of immanent, universal beauty, and content myself
with the concrete, everyday beauty as the everyday
garden can fitly contain it. The blessed Elizabeth actu-
ally talks about the ‘loveliness of Cow-Parsley, that most
spiritual of weeds.’ But had Elizabeth ever tried Cow-
Parsley in her German garden? I think not. Nor, to
do her justice, would she, I believe, claim to admire it
out of its place. So, thank goodness, we are really
at one.

The noble family among the Fig-worts is undoubtedly
that of the Pentstemons. These are all, as far as I know,
Americans, and range from north to south, from hill to
valley, from leafy coarseness to the extremest and most
delicate beauty. Many, too, hailing from countries where
the sterner winters are what we should call a warm July,
prove sad and unhappyin our gardens. But both beautiful
and happy, even with me, is bushy P. Scouleri, with pro-
fusion of large pale purple snapdragons. But far more
beautiful than this, almost lovelier than anything else I
know, is my latest novelty Pentstemon heterophyllus. 'This
is a slender, graceful groweg, reaching perhaps to eighteen
inches. The foliage is ty and refined ; the flowers
appear from July onwards, in very loose, elegant spires—
OF ODD TREASURES 147

and their colour! Imagine long narrow bugles of a tender
soft violet, and then lip and hood and open throat all of
the clearest, purest azure blue—blue as a Gentian or a
Myosotis. ‘The tone in itself is a glory; the combina-
tion is a very miracle. And, planted out everywhere, in
all places and conditions of good drainage and light warm
soil, the Pentstemon bids fair to show itself a sound,
hearty perennial, breaking anew (at least we hope so)
each season from the base.

Of the larger Mimulus I can never muster much love
for cupraeus or for cardinalis; cardinalis appears to me
to have flowers quite inadequate in size for the robust
leafiness of the plant; while there is something—
shape, or shade, about the blossoms of cupraeus that
never quite appeals to me, though it makes a gorgeous
show round my pond in August. But our native or
naturalised alien, Mimulus luteus, with his big vellow,
brown-freckled Gloxinias, well deserves one’s affection.
Even more deserving are two most splendid dwarf-grow-
ing hybrids, Brilliant and Model, of which Brilliant is of
a flaming velvety crimson scarlet, while Model, even
more lovely in my eyes, is of the hottest possible salmon-
rose. Both these make carpets round my pond, and are
a perfect blaze of glory all the summer, not to mention
that they pull to pieces and propagate heartily from the
smallest fragments. Then, of the little ones, there is the
neat, dainty yellow-flowered Langsdorffi from the Rockies,
and two minute species, radicans and primuloetdes, moun-
taineers from wet places, I fancy, of which radicans has
violet and white flowers, and primuloeides abundance of
small yellow ones. They both creep and shrink along the
ground—and, either I have been away during their great
days—or else they have never had any great days; at
all events my impressions of them are not by any means

striking.
148 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

Of the Snapdragons, those who wish can naturalise
Antirrhinum majus in any or all of its forms on sunny
rocks; I content myself with several less showy yet
equally pretty southerners—asarinum, sempervirens, and
glutinosum. Of these asarinum has fleshy, trailing stems,
with large, soft, rounded leaves and a quantity of big
creamy Snapdragons nestling among them, while semper-
virens and glutinosum make stiffish little bushes among
the rocks, with quantities of smaller blossoms along their
small-leaved, greyish branches. These are all lovers of
drought and sun; therefore of doubtful hardiness in
many parts of England. But these half-hardies, as the
lady says of English women in ‘ Le Monde od on sennuie,
‘ont daimables surprises, and JI, who had always found
sempervirens and glutinosum dead after an average
winter, am now overwhelmed with astonishment to see
that they have sailed triumphantly through the mon-
strous inclemencies of 1906-7, and are breaking up into
vigorous little masses once again. Asarinum I planted
high and dry; and yet I have known some incalculable
survivals here and there in the dampest, dankest, most
unpromising places.

Linaria anticaria is a pretty dwarf thing, rather like a
much magnified Linaria alpina, with flowers which vary
infinitely from seed—some being dowdy and quite un-
worthy, while others are very fascinating—white and
velvety brown. Linaria repens is abundant on the walls
of Oxford and elsewhere, a tall plant with very long
close spikes of tiny purple flowers. This plant is only
admissible into the roughest wilds, for it ramps most
grievously and makes itself quite a nuisance. Its variety
alba has rather larger flowers, set more loosely on shorter
spikes, and altogether is much slighter in growth and
more graceful in effect. But even this should be used
with caution. Linaria dalmatica and Linaria dalmatica
‘NASONILOTIS WOANIHNYILNY WOLLO@ FHL LV * MONIN SITVYOTW
YO SANINY GANVNSIN ATSQOTNOICIY VIONVdINVO-SUNILVIQ FHL GNV ASNAIELSVONVT WOINVUA

 
OF ODD TREASURES 149

macedonica are magnificent herbaceous plants, broad and
narrow-leaved forms of one type, probably, like enormous
common sulphur and orange ‘oadflaxes, with glaucous
leaves and a sturdy upstanding habit, that make bushes
four feet high or so, and flower all through the summer, and
thrive in any decent position as heartily as any one could
desire. Linaria Cymbalaria is our own dear little creep-
ing Toadflax of the walls, which is charming for any
neglected corner, as well as its bigger, more brilliant
pallida form. As for Linaria hepaticaefolia, I have an
uncertain plant which came to me as Linaria ovata, but
which is declared to be the true hepaticaefolia—a creeper,
with round, white-veined leaves, and large whitish lilac
flowers, admirable for a rough, shady corner, like every
creeping Toadflax. But one must be very careful with
all of them ; for, if you give them an inch, and they like
it, they will certainly go on to take an ell; only the
most valueless wastes should be allotted them; and
I already foresee that I shall have trouble with my
hepaticaefolia, which is beginning to run up a choice cliff
at whose dank base it was planted in certainty that it
would be out of all harm’s way. Linaria Cymbalaria
maxima, and Linaria Pancici—this last a novelty and well-
spoken of—are yet but seedlings that will flower this
season. As for Mazus rugosus, that also is a seedling, but
looks'so flourishing and flowered so prettily last year, with
little Toadflaxy blossoms, that I am in high hope he may
prove more satisfactorily winter-hard than the older and
better-known Mazus Pumilio. And another pretty little
plant of the Fig-worts, Coris monspeliensis, a Provencal,
with six-inch spikes or so of small purple and gold flowers;
this, like the southerly Antirrhinums, blooms long and
late, loves dry heat, and is not safely hardy here, except
on a high-drained corner of the rocks in light soil.
Foxgloves and Mulleins are hardly rock-plants, except
150 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

for high, rough banks, so I will only chronicle my pretty
yellow-spiked Digitalis ambigua that I collected many
years ago in shady dells of the Esterel ; and a very beauti-
ful ambigua hybrid of which I have seedlings. The
parent-plant had close small-flowered spikes of lovely
rosy bells. Then for the Verbascums I am reduced to the
pretty phoeniceum, with flowers that vary through almost
every conceivable shade of purple. Decorum I once im-
ported from Servia, but he was very flannelly and very
like the common Mullein, so that what with one thing
and the other, I experienced no wild regret or surprise
when the whole lot mouldered off as a consequence of
damp on the journey.

From thought of the Mulleins, so rank, so coarse,
I leap with pleasure to the contemplation of my tinier
bulbs. Not here is the place, nor am I the temerarious
soul to talk of Daffodils, of wee Daffodils, of Narcissus
nanus, Bulbocodiwm, monophyllus, calathinus, triandrus,
moschatus, and many another delicate angel of spring—
éapos dyyeXos imepopwvos anddv. I will be content with
praising the ‘ pied Fritillary.”. Difficult, indeed, are some
of these, and dowdy, but I worship the white variety
of our native Meleagris; and this is a thrifty soul that
goes ahead in any decent soil. Aurea is perfectly beauti-
ful, with the same rounded bells, but much dwarfer, and
of a soft canary-yellow, faintly checkered with more or
less brown. Armena is another pretty one, and so is
Moggridgei; but the dingy ones like pyrenaica I consider
dull and ugly ; while pluriflora, with the scarlet flowers,
has never done much good here, and, altogether, it is in
pots rather than in the open that I get my pleasure out
of Fritillaria. The Erythroniums, however (why are
they called Red Violets or Dog-tooth Violets, or any
violets at all? Nothing could be so unlike), approve of
me more warmly, and are always perfectly beautiful, with
OF ODD TREASURES 151

marbled leaves as with yellow or pink or white reflexing
flowers, They are spattered all over the place, and
thrive heartily—Americanum, Howelli, Dens canis, revolu-
tum, and Stuarti (the true lovely white montanum 1
have never been able to get).

Little bulbs uncountable does the cousinhood of the
Lilies give one, and Grape-Hyacinths are among the
prettiest. I have never specialised on any of these
families ; so my Muscaris are restricted to ordinary ones,
like the very heavenly Heavenly Blue, whose turquoise
spikes are almost the earliest flowers to appear; then
there is szovitzianum, with its white and its rare pale
azure form; and the common botryoeides, with our own
native racemosum, all little cluster Hyacinths, these, to
whom my love goes out far more readily than to plumy,
wild monstrosities like comosum.

Of the Hyacinths, my prime favourite is the soft, sky-
blue amethystinus—a real sky-blue, with its white form
—as well as the ordinary Dutch Hyacinth, when it has
forgotten its Dutchness and grown thin and elegant
again, in which reduced and reclaimed condition there is
not a prettier plant alive than the Hyacinth that had
been so fat and horrid and soulless the year before, in
beds or pots or glasses. Hyacinthella rumelica is a
novelty that I am rearing from seed, and whether it is
pretty or no I cannot say—at this moment I cannot even
tell you whether it is alive or not. All I do know is, that
if a thing with such a name can be ugly,I shall no longer
believe that there is any sense of decency in nature.

High, high among bulbs comes our well-known Blue-
bell, too, and on this subject I must loose my wrath
against the purblindness of people who, when they want
to naturalise Bluebells, don’t buy our own Scilla nutans,
but the kindred Scilla patula (or campanulata or his-
panica), which is a Bluebell spoiled at every point, with-
152 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

out the grace, the charm, the refinement, or any other
delectable quality of Scilla nutans. The one advantage
of patula is that it is certainly easier to establish than
the Bluebell, who is not always very adaptable. But, oh
dear me! the advantage is dearly bought ; and surely it
is worth the extra trouble to have a thing so infinitely
superior as is Scilla nutans to Scilla patula. One year,
too, I found in the woods, and collected with immense
care, a Bluebell who had immense pale blue bracts under
each bell, so that the whole spike looked like a head of
bearded barley that had got dipped into Heaven by mis-
take. Although this was taken up in flower and with a
penknife, it has continued to thrive and increase mightily,
till now I have quite a colony of my little Paderewski
Squill. The other Squills, so far as I grow them, are not
very brilliant or interesting, except my Scilla sibirica, of
course, whose colour is of such an awful squalling blue
that it brings the water into one’s eyes to look at it.

The Chionodoxas, though, are all charming—Alleni,
Tmolusi, and Luciliae ; while of the Snowdrops my vote,
in this mixed, vexed race, goes solely and passionately to
Galanthus Ikariae and Galanthus poculiformis. My
Ikariae is out and away the largest and most brilliant
Snowdrop I have ever seen, while poculiformis, only a
little less in size, has its inner segments pure white and
like the outer ones, but smaller, so that the flower looks
like a reversed snowy chalice without a single spoiling touch
of green. Otherwise all the Snowdrops are to me rather cold
and dreadful—icy, freezing flowers, hardly flowers at all,
but emanations of the winter, in whom I can take no real
joy except on a very bright or very muggy day that gives
a hope of spring. The Snowflakes are different some-
how, though vernum and carpaticum bloom almost as
early in the year. Carpaticum, indeed, blossoms with
the Snowdrops, and its dark green tufts, with the big,
OF ODD TREASURES 153

pendent flowers, purely, warmly white, with their orange
markings, are to me far more heartening than any
Galanthus that ever sent up gelid-looking leaves and
opened its cold-coloured frost-flowers. Leucoiwm aestivum
is only less valuable than his earlier relations because he
comes at a less lonely time, when such as he are less
prized, and the exquisite Leucoium awtumnale (or Acis
autumnalis), the Pink Snowdrop from Gibraltar and the
South, has never done any good here. Those Southerly
creatures don’t; I once had a present of the very rare
Narcissus viridiflorus from Gibraltar, but nothing more
ever came of it, despite attentions beyond number.
154 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

CHAPTER VIII
The Big Woy and its Lilies

Tue denizens of the bog-garden, large and small, have,
as a rule, one distinguishing tendency which sets them
far apart from the inhabitants of rock and crevice. For
their habit is, either not to thrive at all, or else to prosper
so outrageously that they eat you out of house and home.
And this second alternative, fortunately, is that usually
chosen by bog-plants, with the result that the bog-garden
is one of the enthusiast’s easiest domains—giving him the
maximum of joy and glory, with the minimum of pain
and worry. Indeed, among the larger bog-plants there
are hardly any that can fairly be called difficult or ill-
tempered, but a large and opulent generosity of growth
is their prevailing characteristic.

In the first place, about the building of the bog-garden.
The prime, dominant, inevitable, necessity of the bog-
garden is the most perfect drainage. For, the more
moisture a plant requires, the more imperiously does it
require that the moisture shall drain away and be renewed
incessantly. It is a fatal error to imagine that because a
plant enjoys growing with its feet in water, and its fibres
a-soak with perpetual wet, that therefore it cannot need
drainage. Too often the error is made, and the bog-
garden, built to retain the moisture, becomes a slough of
soured and sogey mud, in which the roots of all but the
most rampageous weeds turn sick and die. Drainage,
THE BIG BOG AND ITS LILIES 155

sharp and rapid, is even more essential for the inhabitants
of the marsh than for the pinched children of the high
rocks. One only has to study their circumstances. In
the soaking, fine shingle of the last moraines grow the
downy-leaved mats of Androsace glacialis; and one con-
cludes that heavy, loitering damp can, despite proba-
bilities, be no enemy to that roseate loveliness. But, if
you examine, you will see that the moisture is perpetually
running, sifting, drifting through the rough harsh sand,
and never rests for a minute round the roots of the
Androsace. It is true that I have chosen, for my instance,
a plant so difficult of culture that no treatment seems to
satisfy it; but my rule holds securely and firm all through
the long list of bog-plants, from Ranunculus glacialis,
a-glitter in the melting streams of the snow-beds, to Cam-
panula hederacea, twining its tiny peal of azure bells through
the long wet grasses of North Wales. (And yet I have
just heard of a plant of Eritrichium nanum—Eritrichium
nanum, if you please !—which has thriven unprotected
through a phenomenally rainy winter, planted in a low
boggy hollow! Oh dear me, there is only one infallible
rule, I believe, in the culture of difficult plants; put
them elaborately, with full precautions, in a corner care-
fully thought out to suit their requirements—and they ’Il
certainly die; plant them where, by all laws of their being
it is physically impossible for them to survive—and they ’Il
probably go ahead like Duckweed on a pond. I think
I must take to growing EKritrichium as an aquatic, and
Miltonia Roezlit as a hardy perennial.)

In building the bog-garden, then, take all the soil out,
if necessary, to a depth of three feet or more, then set a
bottom of very rough drainage before you put in your
rich mixture of loam, peat, and old manure. Obviously
such a violent course is not always necessary, by any
means. Quite often your garden will be founded on sharp
156 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

gravel, or flow down a salutary slope. But wherever
your soil is retentive, it will always be wisest to give the
garden a fair start by preparing the ground thoroughly
beforehand, and arming it against catastrophes. Your
ultimate success will trebly and quadruply repay your
initial trouble. Never scant initial trouble, never despise
it. Half the world’s horticultural tragedies arise because
gardeners, for one reason or another, fail to make their
preparations complete, fail to be thorough with the long,
tiresome, and sometimes expensive preparatory measures.
Neglect initial precautions, save a few sixpences in the
matter of drainage, concrete or what not, when you are
making your garden, and you will certainly have to spend
many sad laborious years, and many unprofitable pounds,
in trying vainly to make good your own deficiencies, to
do, with difficulty and pain, what might and should have
been done properly and easily at first. For it is never
easy to make good an error; a thing obvious and simple
to do in its own good time, becomes difficult and dreadful
to accomplish when its time has gone by ; and very rarely,
with great trouble and misery, can one ever catch up the
lost years, and make a tardy botch of what should have
been a simple, workmanly job in the earliest beginning of
one’s scheme.

I speak all this feelingly; I was seduced, in the far-
off years when I was making the Old Garden, and worrying,
through my own ignorance, into saving labour here, and
saving labour there, into allowing thoroughness of work
to pass as insignificant, into yielding to various pernicious
‘dodges,’ because they were cheap. Result: the Old
Garden for years has been a sore burden, an unrewarding
toil, a daughter of the horseleech in its rapacity. Money
in floods has been poured down its bottomless gullet of
late seasons, in a vain effort to reclaim it; and it is only
now, after ten struggling years of failure, that the thing
THE BIG BOG AND ITS LILIES 157

is turning into a success, And that is only by girding
me heroically to the task, and undoing every inch and
every yard of all that was ever done before, and rebuild-
ing the whole thing from the very foundations, as it
ought to have been done at the beginning, nearly a
dozen years ago. And, had I done so, I should have
saved incalculably, in money, time, labour, and pleasure,
by insisting on the extra initial expense that thoroughness
of workmanship entails. Gardeners ‘of England, take
warning by me’; abhor cheapness, which means shoddiness
and inadequacy ; utterly eschew the saved sixpence, which
means sooner or later an outpouring of pounds.

My critics have so alarmed me by describing my
standards as impossibly high and discouraging, that I
must deny their accusation incessantly. There is nothing
in what I say to discourage small gardeners, poor gardeners,
enthusiasts whose scale is limited. I only insist that they
must prepare their ground thoroughly, and not spare the
extra half-hour in building their garden, which will
ensure through later years the prosperity of even difficult,
capricious beauties. It is not lavish expenditure that I
preach—it is thoroughness, thoroughness, thoroughness.
‘Thoroughness, that cheapest and best of investments ;
thoroughness, the gardener’s richest capital; thorough-
ness in preliminary preparation, his easy, perfect insurance
against all the woes that afilict the little flock in his
charge. Of course if you are making a bog-garden by
the acre, preparations will come heavy and expensive ;
but in a little space, such as most of our gardens allow,
all my sermons, even if carried out to the letter, will only
mean a trifle of extra care at starting, an hour or so of
added labour, another six inches of soil removed—a few
small details looked to in the building, which, at the
time, are as trifling and cheap as they may seem unim-
portant—but which, in the course of years, will be found
158 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

to make all the difference between a garden that is a
pleasure alike to the owner and to the plants that live in
it and a garden which is nothing but a perennial anxiety
and expense. For, if you build well at the start, your
money will come flowing back to you, multiplied, through
a thousand channels. Spend a little more—ever so little
more at the beginning, and you will be spending less and
less, making more and more, as the seasons go by. Put
a rare, valuable plant in ill-prepared, faulty ground; it
dies or dwindles; plant it well, in well-planned territory,
and it grows ever stronger and stouter from year to year,
yielding you younglings, and affording you perpetual
pleasure. In renewal-money, saddest of expenses, proper
initial care will save you fortunes; for, with proper
preparation of your ground, you will rarely need to fill up
vacancies left by deplorable demises among your treasures.

Let my ideal bog-garden flow down converging slopes,
and fill a broad hollow. Let its sparse rocks be porous
and water-worn—either of light powdery tuff, or of the
gnarled, fretted mountain-limestone. Let its aspect have
a rich peace, untroubled by ambitious violent features,
pinnacles, bridges, uneasy, fussy adornments, Through
the middle, perhaps, among tangled thickets of Iris, a
stream may meander; but, for the most part, I incline to
the opinion that in a small place water had better be a
haunting pervasive influence than an actual visible force.
In my own gardens, flowing water serves its turn; but as
arule, it is difficult to look after, to keep clear of weeds and
leaves, to hold in its course. Nor is it of any effect unless
the stream be a big one. And in any case water, running
or staying, is an uncommonly hard and expensive servant
to control. ‘Therefore, for general advice, I should say,
let there be abundant moisture, yet none to see. But,
of course, if space and water be at your disposal—space
and such unhusbanded fountains as bless our Northern
THE BIG BOG AND ITS LILIES 159

Land, the banks of your bog may, and should, slope
gently up to stark mountainous rock-work above, whence
brawling cascades may come splashing down over Caltha
and Maiden-Hair fern, loitering in pools and under still
dark caverns, widening into lagoons that mirror beds of
Primula rosea and azure Myosotis. But this is merely a
beautiful vision.

As for the bog itself; if your sub-soil give sharp, free
drainage, if your site be a favourable slope, all your need
will be to prepare rich ground, and then provide moisture
to pervade it. Frequently, though, on heavy soils, it is
necessary to do more. In fact, from my own experience,
I think that it is always better if one can do more;
namely, for a small bog, to take out all the soil to three
or four feet, to fill the space with a sort of concrete tank,
the concrete to be about four inches thick ; then to lay six
inches of rough drainage-rubble at the bottom; then at
the floor of the concrete, at its lowest point, to knock
one or two drainage holes, to let the filtered moisture
run away; and finally to fill up with a very rich mixture
—richer and heavier than the soil of the rock-garden
itself—made of old manure, silver sand, peat, leaf-mould,
and good loam, with a generous intermixture of stone
fragments.

But the garden thus made will be, of course, only the
choice nursery of your rarest, loveliest little things. It
is in no way necessary to take such elaborate precautions
to grow Iris sibirica, Spireas, and the larger, commoner
glories of the bog-garden—which, indeed, require nothing
more than juicy, retentive soil, and a certain amount of
moisture. But, if one is a true enthusiast, it is very
pleasant, at the bottom, say, of a slope aglow with great
Lilies, Irids, Orchids, to have a space where the tiny
jewels of Alpine bogs may be safe and at peace—where
Gentiana bavarica, Primula involucrata, and half a hundred
160 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

other such small delights may have their paradise. And,
for these, it is best to make the elaborate excavation and
concrete basin that I have described—not as an absolute
necessity, but as a safeguard and preliminary precaution,
which will make them a great deal safer and happier than
they are otherwise liable to be—besides securing to them
a suitable, reserved territory of their own, where their
special convenience is consulted, and from which all the
profane crowd of larger plants may be held in banish-
ment.

And now I will give free rein to my ideal, and will
conceive myself lord of a vast bog-garden, sloping richly
away from a high crest of copse and rock to a choice
flat space for delicacies far below. And my bank is now
full-fed with fat soil, and its river flows down from the
upper corner, winding through the valley, but touching
each bank, even to the crest, with the benign influence
of its moisture. For, where water flows, thence water
always climbs, and the banks on either side a stream are
always so far tinged with damp that they can never
know drought, and therefore may fairly be included in
the bog-garden, though their soil, to the touch, is merely
fresh and cool, even in the driest summer heats. So
into my happy valley parched Thirst can never enter.
And now, to take first my choice of big things for the
banks, what shall I begin to plant ?

And at once comes up at my call the Queen-race of the
bog-garden. For,though many and diverse are the dwell-
ings of the Lilies—though Heldreichi and chalcedonicum
blaze on the hills of Greece, though tenuifolium takes plea-
sure in hot, dry, dusty soil, yet, as a race, the Lilies are
plants of the upper reaches of the bog, delighting in very
rich, well-drained slopes, kept always cool by the influence
of water at their feet. Then let the high places of my
bank be filled with gorgeous auratum, Martagon, pom-
THE BIG BOG AND ITS LILIES 161

ponium, monadelphum, szovitzianum, and giganteum. All
these are woodland Lilies, revelling in rich, decayed soil
and the shelter of undergrowth. All alike detest drought,
and are glad to have water haunting their neighbourhood.
No one can fail to mark this who has seen auratum,
hunted and outlawed, with a price on its poor head,
wagging great blooms among the cliffy copses of Kama-
kura, or the Turk’s Cap peering from the gloom of Pinus
montana on the highest tree-limit of the Oberland.

To me, personally, Martagon has never made any strong
appeal, the colour of its pinkish blooms being sickly
and weak ; nor can I see much value in the new high-
priced hybrids—Mar-han and Dal-Hansoni—which seem
to me to have all the ugliness of Martagon and Hansoni,
with the beauty of neither, aggravated by the combina-
tion. As for the Burbanki-crosses, these are too con-
fused and suspect to be spoken of yet: some of them are
obvious pardalinum.

But the snow-white form of Martagon is very notable
even among Lilies. It is a rare and expensive plant,
which is supposed rather hard to grow. My stock, how-
ever, came from an old cottage garden near Ingleborough,
where it makes stout thickets ; and though for some years
I did ill with it, planted in a hot dry place, it is now
luxuriant in cool rich soil, among ferns, at the top of
a big slope that falls towards the bog in the Old Garden.

The other valuable Turk’s Cap is Martagon dalmaticum,
whose stalwart spikes are clothed with turbans of a
glossy maroon so intense as to verge towards black.
(Cataniae is similar, though less profound in tone.) This
is commoner than the white Martagon, and is a perfectly
sound grower in fair treatment, though all the Martagons
require some years to get fully established and show their
true character. Indeed this must be said of all Lilies,
except of those that save one trouble in the matter by

L
162 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

invariably dying after the first year. As for Martagon,
though, it is so robust a species that it might well be
established in our woods—and indeed has so established
itself in several counties of England.

From its very first introduction Likwm auratum,
leader of the Archeleirions, struck the British Public
between the eyes, and became the type of splendour
among Lilies. It is indeed a noble and magnificent plant,
though, for my own part, I do not think it surpasses
Krameri and Chiloraster, sovereigns of the Euleirion
group. But, of the tall Lilies, it is the finest garden
sort. I have not yet indeed mentioned Krameri and
longiflorwm for my bank. My reason is that, do what
you may with Krameri— provide it with well-rotted
manure, and silver sand, and so forth—you will rarely
see its huge rosy trumpets more than once, and you may
think yourself lucky if you see them atall. Longiflorum,
again, Browni, Chioraster, splendid, snowy, creamy trum-
pets, are not always to be really trusted as perennials,
and I am only admitting to my bank Lilies that with
precaution you can make and keep as soundly perennial
as any Spiraea. Nepalense and neilgherrense are of more
than doubtful hardiness; the new, beautiful, fine-leaved
sutchuenense is not yet proved; sulphureum and Lowi
are of no hardiness at all. Wallichianum and washing-
tonianum, stalwart and lovely, are difficult and capricious ;
Parryi, the joy of Californian upland bogs, with canary-
coloured trumpets, is a perfect fiend, at once a miff and
a mimp; the rare Himalyan polyphyllum, a glorified,
pearly Martagon, is now, I think, unprocurable, as well
as very difficult; as for Alexandrae, I have already
recorded my opinion of that delicate hybrid.

So now we return to auratum. This Lily is the type of
the copse Lilies, and in awratwm we may notice the rule that
applies to its whole cousinhood; all these Lilies love to
THE BIG BOG AND ITS. LILIES 163

send up their young growths through light scrub of bush
or fern. When the stalk is mature, its first eighteen
inches or so will be found bare of leaves; and, to such a
height, these Lilies like to be shrouded in vegetation,
which secures their young shoots from drought, storm,
and frost. Even where the naked stem is not found as
an indication, almost all Lilies enjoy a light covert, and
dislike a parching isolation. The sun-loving species—
Heldreichi, tenuifolium, philippinense, concolor, medeoloeides,
avenaceum, callosum, chalcedonicum, candidum, and testa-
ceum—are more or less exceptional, of course, even if one
can ever make a rule for candidum and testaceum (which
one never can, as candidum sometimes seems to revel in
shade); but, in practice, you can rarely do wrong by
planting Lilies among Azaleas, Rhododendrons, Daphnes,
and big ferns. Auwratum, again, sets the fashion in the
matter of food. Auratum has not the perverted gross-
ness of giganteum, for whom no garbage is too disgusting ;
but awratum is still a rank, hearty feeder, and you cannot
possibly give it too rich and solid nourishment. The
more manure it has the more violently will it grow from
year to year, and the more years will it magnificently
endure. Naturally the manure must not be too new or
crude; but it cannot easily be too rich. And this rule
governs almost all Lilies, especially all the forms of
speciosum, which, however beautiful, have no place on my
bank, because they bloom so late that the frosts begin,
as a general thing, before their buds unfold.

The twin Lilies, long confused, monadelphum and
szovitzianum, are not, I fancy, quite so greedy. They
are very splendid people, far too seldom grown, very
stalwart and perennial, when once established in good
light loam, in the companionship of trees or bushes. In
style they are tall and leafy, with abundance of brilliant,
big yellow flowers, like very large canary-coloured Marta-
164 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

gons. They bloom early, too, before the other great
Lilies are showing bud. The remaining yellow Turk’s
Caps are the true pomponium, a very vigorous grower of
medium stature, which has the rare demerit of a most
hateful stench; and Hansoni, a yellow counterpart of
Martagon itself, with which, though it is held an easy
species, I have seldom done much good. The enthusiast,
of course, will grow the rarer species, alike of the
Cup-shaped and the Turk’s Cap sections — maritimum,
concolor, and dainty little starry Coridion. But
these, difficult and evanescent, need not trouble the
general gardener; and as for the Big Cups, tall Bate-
manniae and thunbergianum, dwarf. alutaceum, and
elegans in a dozen forms, these are pretty and robust,
but fitted for the ordinary border. Of the other Turk’s
Caps, the most valuable is chalcedonicum, with its better,
black-stemmed variety, excelswm, with flowers of dazzling
sealing-wax scarlet that appear in August and September.
But this loves warm, dryish places in the border, or among
light grass.

Of ‘fancy’ Lilies there is rosewm, like a dull pink
Asphodel, and a blue-flowered species—a true lilium, and
truly blue, though only of a dull slaty shade, which has
recently been discovered in Korea. But of these the
first is rarely grown, and the second has never been
introduced. I shall not easily forget how I scoured a
high Korean down for it in early March. The short
grass was still sere and wintry ; here and there the steep
slopes were dotted with stunted bushes of Pinus koraiensis.
Beyond, clear blue against the sky, rose sharp sterile
peaks, and very far away below, to the utmost range of
the eye, extended, map-like, the ridged, gravelly desola-
tion of Korea. And on that Alpine pass the earliest sign
of life was a Lily pushing its first soft shoot of green
from the bulb. In the hope that it might prove the blue
 

 

AQUILEGIA GLANDULOSA.
THE BIG BOG AND ITS LILIES 165

novelty, I collected that bulb with laborious care, and
carried it home to Japan, through all the changes and
chances of mortal life, which involved a visit to the
Great Wall of China and a fortnight of dust-storms
and pneumonia in a hospital of French nuns at Peking.
And for my reward that Lily throve and shot up to
its full height like any heroine of a novel. But alas!
when the gracious blossom opened, it was only Liliwm
medeoloeides, which, like avenaceum, is a smaller, frailer ver-
sion of its compatriot, graceful, glowing-flowered callosum.

Auratum, nowadays, has many forms, and the first
thing to notice is that awratum platyphyllum has absolutely
destroyed auratum for gardening purposes. Platyphyllum
is twice as large as awratum, twice as vigorous, twice as
perennial, twice as easy to grow, and twice as brilliant.
Indeed, I might have said thrice or four times without
overshooting the mark, I think. Platyphyllum is magni-
ficent ; no one must ever think of buying the type awra-
tum nowadays. ‘Then there is the beautiful virginale,
without spots, but a trifle delicate and capricious ; and
rubro-vittatum, with notable central stripe of crimson
down each segment. And, finally, there is a new form
just dawning over the Eastern horizon, in which I am
this year indulging, despite its terrifying price. This is
described as rubro-vittatum as far as brilliancy of colour-
ing and crimson stripe are concerned, but as being pure
platyphyllum in every other respect—in strength, in
stature, in enormous size of blossom, in unpretentious
readiness to thrive and persist.

As for Lilium giganteum, this unnatural-looking Lily
comes triumphantly in to some high, copsy corner above
the bog, a corner, if possible, sheltered from sun and wind.
Glehni, cordifolium, and giganteum make up a small,
strange group of Cardiocrinums, utterly unlike all the
other lily-classes— Archeleirion, Euleirion, Isoleirion,
166 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

Martagon—which haunts the dense gloom of pine-forests all
over far Eastern Asia, from the wooded uplands of China
to Saghalin and the dank darkness of the jungle in Hok-
kaido. The stolid, cone-like, scaleless bulbs send out many
whip-thong roots that are gluttonous for food. Up come
broad heart-shaped leaves, iridescent, glossy-green. Then,
after years, a spike, tallest in gigantewm, which reaches to
twelve or fifteen feet, carrying ten to twenty long, narrow,
white trumpets, very fragrant, white within, and purplish
white on the exterior. The plant matures abundant
seed, throws many offsets, and dies after flowering.
Giganteum is the only one that need be grown, the
others being smaller, inferior editions. This Lily is
grateful for shade, moisture, and shelter, towering magni-
ficently in sheltered, cool corners of the woodland, among
ferns, but not requiring the copse-protection that the
naked-stemmed lilies of the Archeleirion section prefer.
Indeed, the big heart-shaped leaves of giganteum admit
of no such overshadowing. ‘The only other note to offer
on this Lily is that it has the most hoggish appetite of
any plant I know. If you want a first-rate colony of
it on the crest of your bank above the bog, you will
do well to excavate a pit and fill it with the contents
of half a dozen swill-troughs and hog-pens; then stamp
down rich light soil, and plant the lily-bulbs init. It
is perfectly robust and hardy, too, though it sometimes
suffers from cold rains or melting frosts lodging in the
goblet of the glittering leaves as they first unfold from
the bulb.

Passing over now, as a rock-plant, my own especial
favourite, delicious rubellum, we come to the lower slopes
of my bank, and the great lilies that are definitely and
frankly bog-plants, clamouring for incessant and abun-
dant moisture. Lilium pardalinum is a tall, rampant
grower, perennially vigorous, to whom no treatment
THE BIG BOG AND ITS LILIES 167

comes amiss. It will even thrive among potatoes. But it
especially loves the cool, rich damps of the bog-garden—
a high leafy plant, whose one fault, in the typical form,
is that of sending up too many blind and flowerless
shoots. The flowers, however, if rare, are magnificent—
big, reflexed, spotted like the pard, on a ground of orange,
vermilion, and scarlet. In the other forms, too, of this
splendid Californian, the tendency to sparse-flowering is
corrected, and Bourgaei, Johnstoni, californicum are all
varieties of the Panther-Lily which exceed the type, if
not in size, at all events in profuseness and brilliance.
And all these Lilies, once inserted in the bog, continue
thriving and increasing mightily from year to year, as if
they were the worst of weeds. Liliwmn superbum is
another North American, whose essential beauty is his
tall, swaying grace. He grows to ten feet or more when
fairly established in the bog, and carries a loose, airy
sheaf of medium-sized flowers, more or less reflexed, and
of the usual fiery colour.

The Tiger Lily needs no description or advertisement.
This glory of autumn unfolds too late with me to give
any perfect pleasure, for how miserable and tantalising to
see fat, rosy buds all gnarled and browned with frost!
And Lilium tigrinum is not a bog plant. However, on
the heights of the bank the Tiger Lily with its trebled
forms, Fortunet and giganteum (but not its horrible
double variety), may well be placed in huge, bold clumps,
well above superbum, pardalinum, and the others that love
the damper levels. Among these perhaps my own especial
joy and pride is the rare and rather ill-reputed Grayi,
which I now have firmly and unquestionably established
in a sopping corner of the bog, where it yearly doubles
the number of its spikes. Gray is a little, slender lily,
carrying a loose spire of rather small bell-shaped flowers,
pendulous, of orange and crimson. Like all the Panther-
168 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

group, it flowers in August and September, with parda-
linwm itself, superbum, and Roezlii, making the bog into
a glory of sunset colour.

Roezlii is another rare and difficult Lily, taller than
Grayi, and much more brilliant, but still a medium-
sized species. With this, again, I have had complete
success in a corner of the bog above Grayi and not so wet
—to balance against my modified failures—hitherto, say
I, for hope is the hardiest perennial of all—with Hansoni,
and with glorious Henryi, the new Lily from Ichang,
which is unworthily called the ‘orange speciosum.’
Henryi is three times the height of speciosum and in-
finitely more beautiful, with daintily-balanced big flowers
of a soft, dreamy apricot-colour. And this new-comer is
reported by all growers to be of the cheerfullest temper
and the most exhilarating constitution under almost any
treatment. However, fate or folly has been adverse to me.
I have grown Henry?, and flowered Henryi, in many soils
and aspects. But I have never yet turned it into a weed,
never succeeded in growing it into a wild copse of yearly
thickening stems. This, though, is by the way, for
Henryi is in no way a bog-plant, but will come in among
bushes, high up on that precious bank of mine where
failure is not known, since it never yet was seen on earth.

But I must now lay earnest praise and a tribute of
gratitude before these Lilies, bog-species or no. They
have the longest flowering season of all bulbous races.
The ball opens with rubellum in May; then hurry on
candidum, alutaceum, monadelphum. Testacewm follows
monadelphum; then, as summer ripens, the Euleirions
take up the tale with dongiflorwm, and the Arche-
leirions break abruptly into the glory of awratum. But
before auratum has come, Browni and Chloraster are in
bloom; then Krameri, if you are lucky—and all this
while, too, the undistinguished blaze of the common
THE BIG BOG AND ITS LILIES 169

orange lilies of every cottage garden continues, and
in the glow the varieties of Martagon and early-
blooming Hansoni pass almost unnoticed. August wit-
nesses the triumph of auratum ; but this is soon crowded
out by the onslaught of all the Panther-group, Parda-
linum at its head, Grayi, Roezlii, Henryi, superbum,
Humboldtit, and canadense pressing close. And, in my
garden, while these flames of red-gold fire are blazing,
they are half-quenched by the soft violet of the common
wild Vicia Cracca, which has established itself as a weed
in the bog-garden, and yearly threatens to strangle in its
chains of purple the swathed, labouring fires of Litum
Roeslii and Lilium pardalinum. Then, after these, while
auratum and longiflorum still gloriously linger, speciosum
and tigrinum are preparing their buds. With the last
lapsing petals of awratwm break the first buds of
tigrinum, and, in a little, if frosts hold off, the blooms
of all the Speciosums open, and carry the triumph of the
Lilies far on into the dank, decaying days of autumn.
Even in the sere sad hours of late summer, amid the
withered herbage of the rock-garden, you hail the terrify-
ing scarlet Turk’s Caps of Liliwm chalcedonicum, repeat-
ing in colour, though with more than doubled size, the
brief June splendour of tiny little fairy-like tenwifoliwm,
blossoming in the dry, warm, sandy corner of the rock-
work. And, last of all, while Christmas approaches in
its black horror of death and decay, the towering six-foot
spikes of Lilium callosum make their annual silly attempt
to flower, pushing more and more strongly every year in
ordinary soil, but never, apparently, able to complete
their lush growth and come to blossom before the depths
of winter. If only it had not this foolish habit, callosum
would be a very valuable Lily, magnificently healthy and
persistent, tall, long-leaved, graceful, with profusion of
reflexing orange flowers. Perhaps in time this new-comer
170 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

from Japan will settle into ordinary garden routine and
adapt itself to our conditions.

Humboldtii and canadense are two more bog-lilies in the
cousinship of pardalinum, but very much smaller and
more slender. Canadense grows slenderly to about three
feet or so, and then, on long pedicels, carries two, or
perhaps three bell-shaped flowers in orange and crimson,
near those of Grayi in shape, but rather larger. Hum-
boldtit is more beautiful again; and, in its high-sounding
variety bloomerianum magnificum, more beautiful than
itself. This form of Humboldtii is the only one to grow.
It thrives well, and sends up loose, well-furnished spikes
of flowers, which are large, spotted, very cleanly, and
brightly coloured in yellow and red, and strike a com-
promise between the bell-shape of Grayi and the Turk’s
Cap of pardalinum, by assuming the form of a large star,
just reflexing at the tips. Maritimum, cup-shaped and
crimson, is a rare, dainty North American which I have
never grown, and with Humboldtii closes my list of Lilies
for the big ideal bog and bank.

Of Parryi I dare not speak; this is a Californian, usually
called a bog-plant, slender, leafy, striking, in shape of
bloom a medium between pardalinum and the Iso-
leirions—that is to say, in the form of a rather shallow
trumpet, soft, rich yellow, sparsely spotted and very
sweet. But Parryi is a problem almost insoluble. Cap-
tain Reid grows it like a weed at Yalding, I understand,
but no one else, not even the most experienced, has any
but an evil tale of it. Clearly bog-treatment by itself is
not enough. I incline to the belief myself that it hates
bog treatment, except, perhaps, for short periods in the
year. However, I will say no more. My bank contains
only such Lilies as are really and honestly healthy, good-
natured, and robust, capable of adding willingly to a
garden’s permanent glory; to the capricious, delicate,
THE BIG BOG AND ITS LILIES 171

uncertain species I say a glad good-bye—or, rather, in
these pages give them no place nor greeting. Let
others specialise on them ; I have given you only sound,
vigorous Lilies. And the list, you see, is not a short
one. Good luck to all.
172 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

CHAPTER [xX

The Greater Bog-Plants

Or the shrub-Spiraeas I will not speak here—at least not
of the big species such as ariaefolia. And Aruncus has
been treated of ‘in another place.’ But if you want
gigantic, tropical vegetation for the rich rough uplands
and outskirts of your bog, you cannot do better than turn
to the gorgeous, herbaceous Spiraeas. Of all these I would
say that if your space will possibly allow, they will look
better in wide tracts and colonies than as isolated
specimens. In point of growth, luxuriant and rich as
they are, they do not run at the root or make themselves
a nuisance, and can therefore be admitted without scruple
even to the smallest territories. But nothing can beat
the effect of a broad sweep of palmata or gigantea, and,
where possible, they should certainly be planted with a
lavish hand. I conceive of a broad, shallow dip between
two wooded hills, through which, in lake and marsh,
shall meander a little stream, while above, far up on
either side, rise sheltering forests. Here, in the open
space of this glen shall be towering masses of the finer
bamboos, clumps of Thalictrum aquilegifolium, waving
copses of the big Lilies—auratum, pardalinum, tigrinum,
giganteum. And here, too, amid belts of the Siberian
Iris—there will not be blazing sun-heat enough for Iris
Kaempfert in this wood-garden of mine—there shall be
jungles of the rosy herbaceous Spiraeas. For these, one
THE GREATER BOG-PLANTS 173

and all, are of a temper indomitably robust, able to look
after themselves anywhere, capable of coping with any
native weed, no less free and sturdy than their sister the
common Meadow-sweet. All they ask is a rich, cool soil,
like that of a damp meadow. They don’t clamour for extra
moisture or bog-treatment, but revel in any such position
as the banks of a ditch. At the same time my visionary
wood-garden must be very careful how it admits the
Spiraeas into the neighbourhood of the great Lilies. For
the fiery orange and scarlet of the Tiger and the Panther
simply yell and squall, like furious Kilkenny cats, against
the chalky pinks of the Spiraeas. This colour, radiant
and clean, is the one weakness of the tall Meadow-sweets,
inasmuch as it is very reluctant to mix on equal terms
with any other.

First and foremost of the big Spiraeas comes gigantea.
This is the ordinary Meadow-sweet multiplied by three,
an enormous tropical thing, waving wide plumes of
creamy-white at the top of eight-foot stems, clothed in
broad palmate leaves. In the pink form the flowers are
are of a pale, ineffective rose, but the type is incompar-
ably better, in richness and splendour of effect. Spiraca
gigantea, besides being as easy as all its kindred, has,
like Aruncus, a hearty readiness to seed itself about the
garden.

Next comes, for old friendship’s sake, the common
Meadow-sweet, gigantea’s little sister, a native whom no
one need ever be afraid to admit, as, however freely it
grows, it never proves a stubborn usurper, nor makes
itself difficult to deal with. Lovely Spiraea palmata is
larger than uwlmaria and smaller than gigantea, coming
about half-way between them, though in leafage and
habit it is nearer to gigantea. And its flower is far
more brilliant than either, being a flat plume of soft,
bright rose. However, palmata varies very much from
174 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

seed, and out of a batch I raised a year or two ago I was
horrified to find that half my cherished nurslings bore
blossoms of a pallid, dirty pink, a hundred tones removed
from the rich splendour of the normal palmata. As for
the albino, it is beautiful of course, creamy and opulent.
But there are many good white Spiraeas, and the white
palmata is not as conspicuous among whites as the type
is among the pinks.

If palmata approaches nearer to gigantea in habit,
lobata (or venusta) approaches nearer to uimaria. Venusta
is a Meadow-sweet of frail and slender growth, lacking
the weed-like robustness and luxuriance of its kindred.
Not that it is in any way capricious or difficult ; any cool
soil will please it. But certainly it does not form masses,
spread, seed, and increase like its relatives, always pre-
serving a certain spindly, fragile look about its isolated
stems. In flower, however, venusta dominates its race,
and utterly eclipses all thought of rivalry. By the side
of venusta the pinks of palmata and digitata become pale
and dingy; for the foaming crown of venusta is of a
violent dazzling carmine, richly brilliant and pure as the
juice of red currants. I know no albino of venusta, nor
desire to, the type being unsurpassable.

Spiraea japonica heads another group of herbaceous
Spiraeas which are all as easy as the Meadow-sweets, and
very valuable for smaller, choicer corners of the damp
garden. ‘These are dwarf in habit, and adapted for
planting in isolated crowns and specimens, their plumed
grace appearing to the best advantage so, at some com-
manding point in the garden’s scheme. Japonica itself,
the commonest of plants for forcing, is no less precious
and beautiful for the open ground. It is imperturbably
robust and hardy, requiring no attention from year to
year. Each season reappear anew its lovely dark-green
glossiness of fern-like foliage, and then the loose,
THE GREATER BOG-PLANTS 175

delicate spires of white. Though perfectly vigorous and
healthy, it is rather more impatient of sunshine than its
kindred, and will do you better, and show you finer
spikes, if you plant it where the blaze is not excessive.

The Astilbes have not even this faint want; they thrive
anywhere in cool soil—herbaceous Spiraeas in all but
name, prolific of the usual bending plumes of white or
pink. I cannot enter upon the minute differentiation of
Astilbe, Spiraea, and Aruncus; if the lover of the race
remembers it altogether as Spiraea, he will be wise
enough for all ordinary purposes. Astilbe rivularis,
Spiraea astilboeides are both lovely, easy ornaments of
bog or water-side; tall, airy, stately are the hybrid
Astilbes, Nuée Rose and Silver Sheaf—whose names
describe them—enlarged, glorified versions as they are of
rivularis. Nuée Rose has a soft, appealing shade, but in
the cousinhood of japonica by far the best pinks are
given us by the two new varieties of japonica itself,
which are called respectively Peach-blossom and Queen
Alexandra—and of which the Queen is infinitely the
better, as she should be,—tall, rosy, perfectly graceful and
noble. Both kinds, though, bear large profuse feathers
of the loveliest, tenderest rose, superior to almost every
other colour in the race. Nor must I leave out, for
loyalty’s sake, Japonica Mr. Gladstone, a magnified form
of the type, carrying glorified spikes of pure white.
As for Aruncus sylvester from Japan, this is a close
cousin of Spiraea Aruncus, producing, on tall, loose stems,
long sheaves of white or pale pink.

Astilbe Davidii is new enough and still rare enough
for the glory of a separate paragraph. Its rarity,
however, will not long continue, as it seeds so faithfully
and generously. Further, it grows, thrives, increases like
the most vigorous of its kind in any cool soil, in any
exposure—a most notable, splendid introduction from the
176 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

‘hinterlands’ of China. Each year its broad, glossy,
ferny leaves form a wider spread ; each year, above their
flattened mass, the stiff straight stems shoot higher and
higher, clothed, all along the last foot of their length,
with innumerable crowded little flowers in a dense, close
spike. I cannot make up my mind about their colour
though. Do I love it or doI loathe it? For the colour
is a furious magenta; but a magenta deified by some
strange magic of violence or splendour—a deep, clamorous,
imperial tone. The fact is that Astilbe Davidii may be
adored without reserve, if only it be very carefully planted.
It must not be within a mile of any yellow, any orange,
any pure rose or scarlet ; and, unfortunately, it blooms in
the bog-garden, while the Panther Lily, Senecio clivorum,
and the pink Meadow-sweets are all in their mid-day,
dawn or decline of glory. It should, I think, be isolated
as a leper, not even admitted to communion with the
white flowers of blameless lives; plant it all by itself in
a ferny hollow, with nothing but ferns and greenery
around, in a spot where the sun’s darts may pierce the
woodland and kindle the full fire of its incandescent
purple; then you will have reason to be perennially
grateful to Astilbe David. Of Astilbe grandis I can
tell an unblemished tale, although the plant is too new
for any but the sketchiest commendation. But it can
certainly be said that Astilbe grandis is a plant of
impeccable character, robust as a nettle, a doubled,
gigantic version of Davidii, revelling equally riotously in
the same conditions, and throwing up aloe-like, sky-
ypointing pyramids of white bloom.

And here, before I take my leave of the Spiraeas, I
must make room for the jewel of the race. This is not a
bog-plant, but a tiny treasure that delights in some cool
moist corner of the choice rock-work. But I am not sure
about the botanical position—even about the botanical
THE GREATER BOG-PLANTS 177

existence, of Spiraea digitata. For, horticulturally de-
scribed, it is simply a minute dwarfed form of Spiraea
palmata—a tiny brilliant version of a big brilliant
original which does not, or should not, exceed three or
four inches in height, although the spreading plume of
its blossom is no less large and no less rosy than that
which crowns the leafy three-foot stem of palmata itself.
‘Should not,’ say I, though, in my uncertainty. For
digitata is suspiciously liable to variation, and though I
have many plants that remain perfectly true, trusty and
tiny from year to year, producing tinies too from seed,
yet again I have had Digitatas that waxed fat and kicked
like Jeshurun, and swelled into ordinary stunted speci-
mens of palmata. This leaves me doubtful whether
digitata, permanent and perennial though its habit may
generally be, is not perhaps a local, possibly an Alpine
variety of paimata, which, in ninety-nine cases out of a
hundred, remains distinct, but not in the hundredth that
constitutes a true species. In any case digitata is one of
the loveliest things on the rock-work, and delights one
even further by bearing its wide rosy flower-heads all
through summer and autumn, far on into the dark days
of early winter, when there is nothing left but the mud-
flecked, slug-nibbled cups of Colchicum, repellent in their
acrid and poisonous-looking magenta. Spiraea digitata,
always remaining a dwarf, restricts itself permanently to
a single crown, never runs about nor grows weedy, but
illumines its select corner from year to year with its crest
of rosy foam, and makes seed in just sufficient quantity to
give you always a few babies, though never as many as
you would like to have of so willing, persistent, and
beautiful a fairy.

A little while ago I mentioned Senecio clivorum. To
Senecio clivorum I now return. Senecios they are called
by botanists, ‘ but liberal gardeners give a grosser name.’

M
178 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

For these are the Groundsels, and a larger race of duller
and more pernicious graceless weeds does not exist on the
face of the globe. In every age, in every clime, by every
race abhorred, the Groundsels, in their innumerable
ugly avatars, possess the wide earth to the exclusion of
the meek, its lawful heirs. Meekness is no virtue of the
Groundsels ; dowdy they may be, and most generally are ;
but where beauty occurs in the race, it appears with an
ostentatious arrogance that betrays consciousness of its
rarity. For there are beautiful Senecios, whose beauty
admits of no question. I name four—pulcher, japonicus,
clivorum, and Doronicum. It is true that japonicus is
ashamed of its cousinship, scorns the hated name of
Senecio, and lurks nowadays under the disguise of
Erythrochaete japonica. But not even this barbarous
blend of Greek and Latin can secure it from recognition.
Senecio it is and will be, with big leaves, round in design,
but deeply incised, and clusters of very large flowers of a
radiant, intense golden-orange, carried on stems two or
three feet high. Senecio japonicus is fine and brilliant
for the large bog, loving any deep, cool, rich soil, and its
one fault is a certain niggardliness in the matter of
flowering.

But Senecio clivorum is the giant of the race, forming
in three years from seed a mass, six feet across and as
many high, of great rounded leaves on long stalks, and
countless sturdy tall masts, adorned with many-flowered
heads of enormous orange blossoms. Like japonicus,
clivorum blooms through late summer and autumn, and is
of prime value for some high, bold point in any wood or
bog-garden whose extent is large enough to hold such a
Titan ; it is a ramping rooter, in deep rich soil, not
parched or dusty; is perfectly robust and hardy; and
never makes a weed of itself, but multiplies the number
of its crowns until it forms a big, centralised clump after
THE GREATER BOG-PLANTS 179

the manner of Spiraea Aruncus. As a water-side plant
Senecio chvorum quite extinguishes its other big robust
cousins, the Ligularias, fine dock-leaved things, with
tall spires of uninteresting, stodgy yellow.

Senecio thianshanicus is another new introduction, also
from Upper China. For this I have so far but little use.
Its growth and leafage is that of a Wormwood, and its
inflorescence cloudy and loose, made up of innumerable
minute flowers, reminds me of a Golden-rod—a thing I
hate—or else of a yellow Spiraea. Also it seems to run
about and form a colony. Late summer and autumn
sees these stout Groundsels in their prime, but when they
are going to rest they are followed, in late October,
November, and December, by the insolent, dreadful glory
of Senecio pulcher. he beautiful Senecio hails from
Mexico, a smallish plant by comparison with its giant
kindred, growing to two feet or a little more, with
spatulate basal leaves of glaucous blue-grey, leathery and
smooth, and then, on a bare stem, three or four large
flowers of a blazing magenta-purple, eyed with gold. In
dull dead days, the fire of this is wonderful in rare
glimpses of the pale sunlight, and the plant has thus an
artificial value besides that of its own intrinsic splendour.
But this unexpectedly hardy exotic is not, after all, of
perfectly unquestioned hardiness. And it is by no means a
plant for the bog. On the contrary, it detests superfluous
moisture, and must have, to do itself justice and be
permanent, a warm, sheltered, sunny corner well up on
the rock-work, in very deep rich soil, warm and light,
through which its vast vermicelli roots may go roaming
untroubled by corroding damps.

Let us now deal compendiously with the other Ground-
sels, since among them we are landed, leaping away for
a moment from the low-lying territory of the bog. And
a far leap it is, too; away through the clear air to the
180 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

last highest limit of the Alpine pastures, and the first
stretches of stone that lead upwards to the moraines.
For the remaining Groundsels, at least those of value for
our gardens, are genuine Alpines. First of all in order of
merit, facile princeps in my heart, and certainly the best
for gardening purposes, is Senecio Doronicum. This you
do not see until Arnica has given up the climb in
despair, and remains below you on the upper slopes. As
you go higher and higher, over the fine turf of Alpine
clover and Azalea procumbens, you come at last upon
Senecio Doronicum. In growth, shape, and colour of leaf
this is not unlike pulcher, though rather smaller than
pulcher at its finest. But the blue-grey leaves, with their
snowy reverse, the grey stems, the grey calyces are clothed
with a fine soft tomentum, which gives the whole plant a
delicate effect of silver. The flower-stalks carry only
one or two blooms, but these are much larger than those
of pulcher, and of a fierce, penetrating, deep orange,
which, for profound intensity of beauty, I can match with
no other yellow, and which contrasts, too, most gorgeously
with the moony argent of the leaves. This glowing
treasure blooms in midsummer, and is far too seldom
seen in cultivation, being as easy and indestructible as its
cousin the common Groundsel. Silver tomentum also
clothes our own very rare native, Senecio spatulaefolius,
from Mickle Fell, as well as Senecio campestris, of which
it isa form. But these, with ordinary yellow flowers, are
so much less lovely than Doronicum that the silver
tomentum in their case may be called white wool.
Senecio adonidifolius is a coarse little weed, with ferny
foliage and wide heads of small golden flowers ; beauti-
ful little awrantiacus is much smaller, with foliage as fine
as a Camomile, and fewer, larger flowers of a dark,
flaming orange. This, however, is a true Alpine, for the
choicest part of the rock-garden, in granitic soil, and has
THE GREATER BOG-PLANTS 181

not the free habit, and certainly not the rare startling
beauty that distinguishes Senecio Doronicum.

No; having climbed high in a moment on to the
beloved Alps of my heart’s eternal longing, I will not come
lumbering down again immediately to the levels of my
bog-garden five or six thousand feet below in the stuffy,
wooded valley. It is too far to go for only one tantalis-
ing minute; now that I am here I will stay a while and
drink deep breaths of the mountains, and wander round
among the lesser cousins of the Groundsels. Every one
knows the big leafy yellow Leopard’s Banes of every
cottage garden, carrying abundant coarse Dandelion
flowers in early spring, on tall stems of two or three feet.
These one may grow in rough worthless corners, and both
plantagineum and par dulienohes are so vigorous that they
have established themselves as wildlings in several English
woods. Orphanidesi I reared from seed, and had high
hopes of, because only one seed ever germinated. How-
ever that, in the changes and chances of the potting-
shed, vanished mysteriously, and was no more seen. So
I have little to say of Doronicum. But the high Alps
give us some cousins of the Doronicums that are almost
their twins. The Aronicums, of which glaciale and scor-
pioeides are to my eyes barely distinguishable, only come
into view when you are leaving even Senecio Doronicum
behind, and are well up on the desolate territory of the
moraines. Here the broad, ephemeral leaves of the
Aronicums begin to peer at you from stony slopes and
the shadow of dank wet rocks. They look far too flop-
ping, thin-textured and brilliant in their shallow green to
be growing here in this desolation, amid these rigorous
stern conditions, hardly a hundred feet from Eritrichtwm
nanum, and within bowing distance of the glacial Ranun-
culus. Yet here these plebeian-looking creatures flourish,
and here they send up occasionally, on short leafy stems,
182 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

their large Leopard’s Bane flowers of a clear, rather shrill
yellow. But the flowers, though enormous, are weak in
substance, undistinguished in appearance, and uninterest-
ing in colour; I cannot greatly love them, though the
memory of them has lured me so high upon the hills,
and though they are robust, unexacting and persistent in
any sort of cultivation, however brutal. Far better, a
hundred times better, do I love the Arnica, growing, as it
does, a thousand feet lower on the Alps, among the
varieties and hybrids of the big ugly Gentians, purpurea
and lutea. And Arnica, when once you have gratified its
morbid passion for peat, is as easy to grow in the rock-
work as any daisy, though slugs or mice have a tender-
ness for its buds and shoots, Every year, on a copsy
shoulder of my peat-bed, among the straggling boughs
of Cistus lawrifolius, come up my masses of Arnica, in
greater and greater abundance, their sweet, acrid, hearten-
ing fragrance, when bruised, blending delightfully with
the haunting violet-fragrance of the Cistus. Not that
my Arnicas are in shade; far from it; sun and exposure
they require ; the Cistus merely throws frail tentacular
branches here and there towards them. Arnica is, par
excellence, the dear plant of promise; when, on the bare
hillside, amid the brown herbage, you first begin to see
its ragged great orange stars rising high above the ground-
hugging rosette of broad, pale soft leaves, pleated and
silky, then you realise that only a few score feet of
arduous climbing still separate you from the high stony
lands where Androsace and glacier-Buttercup run riot.
Once, too, I found a couple of Arnicas that carried
blossoms of a very pale sulphur-yellow ; but these, though
I collected them and nursed them carefully, never did any
good and, I think, have since passed away. It is here to
be noted, by the way, that Arnica has immense voracious
whipthong roots, which must be allowed ample pastur-
THE GREATER BOG-PLANTS 183

age and roaming ground if the plant is to do well;
though otherwise there is no sort of difficulty attending
its cultivation. No less easy, but rather less brilliantly
beautiful is the smaller, more numerous-flowered Arnica
Chamissonis that I collected in the Rockies and have
since found perfectly easy to grow, though not very con-
spicuously worthy of the trouble, by comparison with the
outstanding charm of Arnica montana.

Now I no longer have any shadow of excuse, and must
soar downward again to my bog, resisting manfully any
peevish inclination to call it a slough. A quantity of
isolated species now claim garden-room and _ notice.
Already have I sung my song of gratitude and praise to
Anemone rivularis, Thalictrum aquilegifolium, Ranuncu-
lus aconitifolius, and Gentiana asclepiadea. All these
must be throned piously in the bog, though the pretty,
cloudy white stars of the Buttercup do not deserve the
choice place that must be given to the lovely Anemone
and its contemporary Willow-Gentian, with the long
arching wreaths of sapphire trumpets, lightening up the
garden in late summer, and coping with the hot flame of
the Panther Lilies and their kin. The Buttercup takes
any amount of moisture, and is patient of a good deal of
shade. The others are not exacting, but will do best with
a little less of either. Campanula macrantha, too, the
enlarged version of our own giant latifolia, is a magnifi-
cent plant for some rough copsy corner at the outskirt of
the bog. It would be dangerous to admit this near select
quarters, but it makes a fine figure at the back of the
picture among ferns and lush foliage. Another rare
native and north countryman there is that I loved from
my early days, and still love, though with tears and
reluctance. The Melancholy Thistle stands apart among
its kind—though this, as far as I can see, is no reason
why it should be melancholy—in having no spines or thorns
184 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

or unfriendlinesses of any kind. ‘The toothed, pointed
leaves are smooth, of a very dark grey, clothed with white
tomentum on the reverse. The stems, almost bare, are
tall and few-flowered, also grey with down. The big
fluffy blossoms are of purplish rose, and dowered with
a faint, intoxicating scent, which I earned a prophetic re-
putation for eccentricity by loving even in the remote days
of my childhood. In one form of Carduus heterophyllus,
too, the leaves are gashed and slashed into so handsome
a pattern that they come to recall the convention of the
Acanthus. Actuated, then, by admiration and old love,
I introduced the Melancholy Thistle from the woods
above the Lake to the bog in the Old Garden. Immedi-
ately, however, the drooping creature cheered up in the
most dreadful and depressing way. It grew and it grew
and it grew, it spread and it spread and it spread; ever
since I have been waging vain war with the invader,
spudding it up to-day in one place only to find it burgeon-
ing anew from another to-morrow. My combat is with
a Lernean Hydra; the plant runs underground, and
makes two shoots, it seems to me, for each one that I
cut off. But still I love the Melancholy Thistle, wicked,
fascinating creature, which is not content with the ini-
quity of ramping insatiably underground, but must needs
also fill the air, all summer through, with flying silver
clouds of seed. Just such a wickedness characterises,
too, as I have said, those other wicked applicants for
admission to our gardens, Epilobium angustifolium and
Epilobium hirsutum. Yet though their guilt is no worse
than the Thistle’s, I frankly detest the Epilobiums,
and warn you all yet again and again, never to be
seduced by their pleasant beauty into giving them so
much as an inch. For, in that case, be assured that
they will not only claim, but occupy, not one, but
scores of ells; and by their monstrous fecundity
THE GREATER BOG-PLANTS 185

will turn your wretched garden into an ell with an
initial H.

If you have unlimited space at your disposal, and high
bold corners, you will not, of course, omit the Gunneras
and the Pampas-Grass. Nothing is more magnificent than
a big old clump of Pampas, drooping and weeping and
luxuriating over a lake, from some lofty precipitous point
of rock-work falling sheer towards the water. It is so I have
it in my Old Garden, and for once, the actual makes
a model for the ideal. The effect is splendid and mar-
moreal. The Gunneras do not waken my zeal to the
same extent. They are immense—‘d formes architectu-
rales’—like gigantic Rhubarbs, swollen in a nightmare.
Their hardiness hovers on the edge of doubt ; they like a
little sifted ash for protection in winter ; and, altogether,
if I am to tell the truth, I myself admire the great cut-
Jeaved Rhubarb, Rheum palmatum, with its towering
spires of crimson blossom, to the umbrella-like enormous-
ness of the Gunnera-foliage, concealing their stodgy dull
spikes of greenish-yellow flowers, like gigantic bottle-
cleaners. On the other hand, while Gunnera scabra and
Gunnera manicata are so colossal as to have no place in
any garden that cannot be measured by the mile, Gunnera
magellanica is so minute as hardly to be visible to the
naked eye, and certainly is no more covetable than the
common Coltsfoot, though, possibly, less of a pest.

Of foliage plants for the lake-side, though, or the big
bog, there is nothing to surpass the Rodgersias—the old
podophylla, with wide, bristly, five-cleft leaves, bright and
glossy, ranging from emerald green through every shade of
red, bronze and purple. The plant runs freely and forms
a fine sheet of shining leafage on a slope—as I saw it once
clothing a whole hillside in the Hokkaido, though
its flower spikes, just rising above the leaves on their two-
feet stalwart stems, are not of any great decorative
186 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

importance. Any cool moist soil, in peat or loam, will
please the Rodgersia, and it does not enjoy exposure to
torrid sunshine. The same remarks apply to the new
pinnata, with dainty graceful spires of Spiraea-like
bloom, either white or pink, and to the still newer and
rarer tabularis.

I have no strong affection for the Megasea Saxifrages,
such as ligulata and afghanica—leather-leaved, large
things, with coarse flat heads of pink or white. But
Sazifraga peltata reigns a queen by bog and lakeside,
and I greatly wonder that I have not already paid it
my heavy debt of gratitude. Sazifraga peltata hails
from California, and yet is of the most imperturbable
hardiness and vigour. Its gnarled, knotted root-stock
goes crawling about over the bare rock at the water’s
edge, suggesting the tentacles of the octopus, combined
with the wrinkly blackness of an elephant’s trunk. From
the round green knob in which each wandering tentacle
ends, there rises in early spring, on a tall bristly pink
stalk about three feet high or so, a shower, like a
spreading rocket, of innumerable rosy stars. Then the
flower dies, and up break the splendid leaves in abund-
ance—large, palmate, brilliant, having something of the
Nelumbium’s beautiful cupped design, though glossy-
green, hispid and incised. They are carried high, some-
times to the height of a man, and in a few seasons one
plant will form a mass in which cowering Monmouth
might have found better covert than among his cabbages
—or was it barley? Then, in autumn, each broad um-
brella fades into russet, orange, scarlet, violet; and so
droops and pales at the approach of winter. So vigor-
ous and so beautiful is this Saxifrage that one’s only
peril lies in using too much of it. It should certainly be
established everywhere, as it will look after itself among
the roughest weeds of the woodland and the water-side. I
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THE GREATER BOG-PLANTS 187

have it thriving in the wild-wood garden now, and making
a mock of brambles and long grasses. As for propagation,
you have only to cut off a few inches of black tentacle in
early spring, with a green bulge at the end, and plant it
firmly in good soil. Soon the lopped member will shoot
and start creeping. Once started, it will ramp on and on,
over naked rock or concrete, seeming to need no more
nourishment than it gets from its original starting-point
and the moisture all around.

Who is there that will not grow Cypripedium Reginae ?
I need say no more. I have already chanted the psalm
of the Queen-Slipper. Give it light rich peaty loam,
perfect drainage, much enrichment of old leaf-mould, a
fair degree of moisture, and the shelter of neighbours,
Then you will do well and permanently with the Cypri-
pedium. Especially may one suggest the Osmundas regalis,
and cinnamomea,—or Struthiopteris,—as companions for
the Queen-Slipper, which never looks lovelier than when
peering from amid the rich filminess of ferns. The
Bamboos might serve, you would think, but not one of
them may ever be trusted within two hundred yards of so
choice and forward a spot as you would naturally choose
for the Cypripedium. Eulalia, again, tall and elegant,
is only fitted for such high places as you might otherwise
grace with the Pampas. A specially dainty occupant of
the large bog is the seldom-seen Poteriwm canadense.
Our own Poor Man’s Pepper-box, Poterium sanguisorba,
is too dull in flower, despite its exquisite foliage, to find a
corner, but canadense, having the same choice design of
leafage, multiplies the whole scheme by three, and is a
fairy giant of a plant, sending up in very late summer
and all through the autumn, six-foot stems, terminated
by long fluffy spikes of white, similar to the Cimicifugas,
in a way, but far more attractive. This will grow in any
rough place, and needs no trouble at all.
188 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

The Cimicifugas never attract me very much; their
glossy, elder-like foliage is very handsome, and effective
too are the long bottle-brush spikes of white that they
send up to the height of five feet or more—some in early
summer, and others at intervals on into late autumn.
Davurica, I fancy, is the handsomest, and all thrive with
the most unexacting ease in any cool soil. But they have
something a little coarse and rank about them, to my
taste—perhaps a hinted warning of the poison that lurks
in all their being. It is fortunate that poison-plants
seldom if ever fail to offer some such indication of their
nature to the sensitive observer. Who would take Atropa,
Hyoscyamus, or fatal Hellebore, for ordinary benign,
innocent creatures; or fail to feel an intuition of evil
about Monkshood, Foxglove, and Daphne mezereon?
And the Cimicifugas, like their rare native cousin, Actaea
spicata, are too unmistakably ominous in appearance to
have the full attraction of their beauty.

The Loosestrife, on the other hand, is plain but respect-
able, to set against the bad prettiness of the Baneberries.
I call Lythrum salicaria plain, perhaps cruelly and with-
out justice, but its profuse spikes of flowers have a
lacerating crudity of magenta that destroys everything
else within a radius of a hundred yards, kills all the joy of
one’s eye, and quite disqualifies the Loosestrife, handsome
and blameless as it is, for any place in the careful and
selected garden. I had it once, by accident, next to a
flaming orange mass of Montbretia Pottsii. Shrieks fail
utterly to paint the horror of that jangle, * which fiddle-
strings is weakness to expredge my nerves’ when I recall
it. The other, true Loosestrifes—Lysimachia, not Lythrum
—are useful, tall coarse things for the distance, for remote
places with which we do not more closely concern our-
selves.

Spigelia marilandica is an American from southerly
THE GREATER BOG-PLANTS 189

parts, who bulks large in many gardening books. ‘The
plant is not easy to grow, uncertain in temper, miffy in
constitution, exacting as to climate, dependent on perfect
drainage and abundant moisture. And when, after all
these stumbling-blocks have been surmounted, and you
at last succeed with the plant, as one year I had the
privilege of doing, you see a weedy growth like a poor
Gentiana asclepiadea, carrying very similar flowers,
trumpet-shaped, reddish outside and yellow within—or
the other way round ; I cannot really remember. In any
case I did not love it nor glory in it; and when it
departed this life I did not replace it. Rhewia virginica
is a compatriot, a tiny marsh shrub, loving wet sandy
peat, and very gorgeous with its abundant large flowers
of purplish crimson. I imagine them like those of
Lagerstroemia indica on a small scale, clawed at the base.
The truth is that I have never seen mine in flower. The
plant has not done well with me, and when, one year, my
manager succeeded with a fine batch of imported clumps,
I was not there to see, and by the time I returned the
Rhexias had relapsed into their more normal state of
moribund sulkiness. In sunnier climates, with perfect
drainage, this will probably do better; Rhexia mariana
is unquestionably half-hardy, hailing from more southerly
parts than virginica.

A third American we have, of first-rate value for the
bog, either big or choice, in Lychnis haageana. This
comes readily from seed, grows willingly and freely,
though never obstreperously, and is perfectly trustworthy
and perennial. It loves the peaty bog, is tolerant of
abundant damp, and looks after itself from year to year.
It throws up rather weak, leafy stems to about two feet,
and then freely produces round cart-wheel blossoms of an
orange-scarlet more terrific than anything else in the
garden—even Gerbera Jamesoni. It varies in colour, it is
190 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

true, from seed, but all its shades are brilliant. Lychnis
fulgens and Lychnis grandiflora, its aboriginal types, have
never done anything much with me, nor has another
marsh Lychnis which has been reported beautiful—
Lychnis striata, also from Japan, which sounds like
another form of the fulgens group. Probably these two
wanted hotter summers than I could supply.

The May-Apples, hardly bog-plants, rejoice in a rocky
nook within the influence of neighbouring damps, and
look beautiful peering from a cliff in such elegant
company as that of exquisite Adiantum pedatum, the
hardy Maiden-hair from New Zealand, or of our own native
Maiden-hair, of every greenhouse and all our Western
coasts, if you are so fortunate as to establish it as a
hardy perennial beneath some overhanging ledge of rock.
The May-Apples are Himalyans, valuable purveyors of
medicine, apart from other plants in their strange growth.
Plump and juicy comes up the leaf stalk, then divides
into two branches, from each of which droops, and then
expands, a broad smooth’glossy leaf, which in peltatum is
roughly rounded, and in Emodi is of the same design but
deeply divided into lobes. These leaves, of brilliant
light green, are heavily veined and marbled with bronze
and violet, nor do they ever lose this conspicuous beauty.
Beneath the leaves, at the division of their pedicels, lurks
coyly a small white flower like a tiny Paeony; in peltatum
these are rather inconspicuous; in Emodi they are really
very charming when once you have discovered them.
Here, more or less, ends the tale of peltatum, but Emodi’s
flower gives place to an enormous seed-pod of the most
brilliant vermilion, and a fine clump of this Podophyllum,
carrying a dozen stems or more, each bowed beneath this
weight of colour, is a splendid sight in early autumn,
though the birds are greedy to rifle its beauties. Though
peltatum also forms a pod, this enters into no sort of
THE GREATER BOG-PLANTS 191

rivalry with that of Emodi. In both species the seed is
abundant and fertile, ready of germination, and one can
in no time raise a thriving stock of either. These May-
Apples require no treatment except to be planted in
some good nook to themselves, in rich soil of either peat
or loam, and there to be left quite undisturbed for many
years. Of course, their broad, thin-textured leaves being
a great beauty, and their juicy stems being brittle, they
are grateful for a corner where they will not be flogged
and victimised by harsh winds.

The place for Aster is elsewhere; but here I must at
last give due meed of honour to Aster pyrenaeus. Why
do so few people seem to know, or to grow, this lovely
and priceless Michaelmas Daisy? A tall, stalwart, bushy
grower, very leafy, with lush bright green foliage, Aster
pyrenaeus carries from midsummer on into autumn
enormous, flattened pyramids of flowers. These are large,
of loose graceful build, and of a bright blue lavender,
very clear, and very clearly contrasting with the central
boss of clean gold. Few plants of this size are more
attractive, and very few Asters have the same clarity and
effectiveness of colouring. But I have not yet arrived at
the supreme merit of Aster pyrenaeus. For it will grow
everywhere—literally everywhere. And it will grow best
of all in shallow water or in the wettest part of the bog.
I have it in dense masses in rich dry land. I have it in
masses in the wild wood. I have it in masses above the
marsh, and I have it in masses in five inches of water.
Nor does this treasure make itself a nuisance by spreading
or seeding. It grows from one crown into a wide cluster,
and that is all. When you want to increase your stock,
all you have to do is to mangle off the outskirts of a big
clump with your trowel. Every piece will grow.

Other big things that will prove effective are the new
Saussurea atriplicifolia, for a dry, elevated bank of rich
192 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

loam above the bog. This is like a great Thistle—say
Carduus eriophorus, on a rather smaller scale—with big
flowers of a maroon almost verging upon black. Sten-
anthium robustum is another novelty, to be planted by
colonies in a similar place—whereas the Saussurea is
most effective as an individual. Stenanthium is so new
that I can say little about it. The leaves are long and
grass-like, and the flower stem, of four to six feet, is said
to carry huge hearse-plumes of foam, that develop, from
a greenish shade, through pure white to pink. As for
the Gayfeathers, I have never seen a Liatris I would will-
ingly admit to my territories. They are brilliant, with
their long close spikes of blossom, opening untidily from
the top, and they all thrive robustly in or near the well-
drained drier parts of the bog, in deep nutritious loam.
But in all the varieties, the colour is of too pungent a
magenta to be anything but a pain. Xerophyllum aspho-
deloeides is another North American, just what its name
implies—an Asphodel with greyish grassy leaves and
spikes of white flowers, far more brilliant of colour.
Near the bog this does well in deep sandy peat, but I
have never had much joy or triumph of it ; and I positively
dislike its type, the true Asphodel, a gawky thing with
spikes of dingy dismal and white, sodden and ghostly
enough in tone to be, indeed, the phantasmal flower of
the underworld—though, for that matter, no Heaven
would be Elysium for me if it grew no prettier flowers
than Asphodel.

The Phloxes, suffruticosa and decussata, with all their
innumerable gorgeous varieties, do not belong to me to
treat of, although no more glorious denizens of the bog
could possibly be imagined, and though, in hot dry
climates, there could be no better chance of enjoying the
florist’s Phloxes than by using them as bog-plants, in
damp rich soil. However, I quail from trespassing on
THE GREATER BOG-PLANTS 193

the ground of the dealer in herbaceous stuff—so will slide
past the tall herbaceous Phloxes with a mere comment
that late summer holds nothing more richly splendid
than ‘General von Heuzst’—the spelling is uncertain in
all catalogues—sparkling cherry-rose, with a clear white
eye—flowering profusely too, in mounded heads of
circular flowers, and striking the eye, in a mass, from
quarter of a mile away. And this is only primus inter
pares, where almost all are beautiful.

Now, last of all, comes my plaint for Lysichiton kam-
schatcense. This plant, of daunting title, is very likely
not what I mean, though; Kew’s Lysichiton has the
foliage of my lost love, but its flowers, I am told, are
yellow. Now this is the tale of my discovery and loss.
After a long toil amid the solfataras of Noboribets’, in
the Hokkaido, I was returning, wearied, through the
calm twilight of a grey day, when I came suddenly upon
a sopping bog, filled with pools and gleaming stagnations
of wet. And, dotted about over the pale expanses, were
starting up, on stems of an inch or two, great snowy
blossoms exactly the size and shape and colour of Calla
ethiopica. As soon as the flowers were over, up would
come the leaves. I saw them, on advanced specimens—
opulent, splendid fans, exactly like those of Musa
Ensete. You may imagine how eagerly, with pantomime
and gesticulation, I procured me, from an Aino villager,
a spade or mattock that must have been twin to that
with which Cain killed Abel; how, with this primeval
implement, I raked up the stinking depths of the marsh,
to get a few plants with their vast white roots intact :
how I sent them off, with elaborate directions, to be
grown for me in Yokohama. And how, of course, amid
the torrid heats of that pestilential place they all unani-
mously expired, and I have never since been able to
acquire that precious plant in a living state. True, I

N
194 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

got live pieces of Lysichiton from Canada last summer ;
but they also died, and besides I am not perfectly certain
that my discovery in Hokkaido was ordinary Lysichiton.
In any case, it was a big Aroid, with the habit of
Lysichiton and Symplocarpus, flowering before the
development of its enormous leaves. But those flowers,
I maintain it, were snowy white—far different from the
malodorous dingy purples of the Skunk Cabbage; which,
otherwise, I will concede, is a fine easy foliage plant for

the bog-garden.
TRIS 195.

CHAPTER xX
Aris

I wave already sung the song of the Irids, of those that
dwell favourably and fittingly upon the rock-work; but
of the stately species that remain, there are many that must
have a place upon the upper and lower slopes of my bank.
First, as to exclusions: all the German Flag-Irises, all the
bearded Irises, Statellae, Ciengialtii, biflora, sambucina,
pallida, hevagona and pearly florentina are best fitted for
the open border and for deep soil on the higher, dryer
shelves of the big rock-work. So also are the smaller
species of the group, attica, bosniaca, and the rest. Nor
can I distinguish accurately and describe; as my Irises
arrive, I cast away their labels in a frenzy of dislike for
such disfigurements, and in arrogant hope that I may
perhaps remember the different kinds apart. The result
is a state of chaos with which it would take a specialist
to cope. Not to mention that the nomenclature of Iris
is unsatisfactory. I know that my tricuspis—a pretty
grassy thing, with purple, tricorn flowers—is not
genuine ; I suspect my tolmieana too, and hover in doubt
as to many of the others. What of a small intermediate
Flag-Iris with big flowers of a curious greenish yellow,
like blown glass ; am I right in daring to remember that
this is attica? It arrived in a bale from Servia, hung
about with indecipherable labels, and I know that attica
was comprised in that consignment, which also concluded
196 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

bosniaca, as well as two others, whose very names have
long since perished from my memory. These are for the
dry rock-garden; so are intermedia and pretty violet-
flagged Fieberi, of small stature and splendid bloom ;
and all the Rohais hybrids, too ;—in which, for the rest,
I am disappointed, their growth being very lavish and
leafy, their flowers rather dull and undistinguished by
comparison.

But before I go on to the Bog-Irises themselves, it will
be but common decency for me to find places on my
bank for the large Flag-Irises. Germanica itself—the
old common type-plant, with its tall stems and its great
glorious purple flowers—is worthy of our-humblest grati-
tude; it is no less amiable in good soil, high on the slope
above the bog, than amid the sooty, cat-hunted wastes of
a London Square. It has produced innumerable varieties
and hybrids, of course, intermarrying freely with its close
cousins in the bearded group; but none of the children,
to my taste, surpass the robust imperial splendour of the
type. Indeed many of them grow poor and indetermin-
ate in colour, developing a small, wizened fall, far inferior
to the flopping purples of germanica, so amply grace-
ful in design as well as magnificent in colour. For the
bronzy, yellowish, fulvous, mottled hybrids of germanica
I have no use. Jnnocenza, white as its name denotes, is
beautiful, and others, of old raising, have full form and
fine colour. Madame Chéreau, the edges of whose snowy,
frilled falls are pencilled most exquisitely with pale azure,
is another beauty, long established, but not to be ousted
by new-comers. Yet Madame Chéreau is not a germanica
pur sang; and, besides, for all her dainty loveliness, has
not the full, unhusbanded length and stretch of petal
that marks the best of the German Irises.

Germanica, however, is flanked by two formidable
rivals in florentina and pallida. So well known and well
IRIS 197

beloved are these, that there is little need for me to
describe the big pearly flowers of florentina, rising up
on stalwart spikes above the robust masses of foliage ;
nor the high-bred charm of pallida, twin to germanica in
shape and size and habit, but bearing flowers of a soft,
clear lavender blue like that of the Sweet Pea, Countess
of Radnor. But paillida rises on stepping-stones of itself
to higher things: pallida dalmatica, pallida Princess
Beatrice, and pallida Mandraliscae are glorified versions,
finer even than the type pallida; indeed Mandraliscae,
with enormous blossoms of that gentle lavender, rising
high above the greyish sword-like leaves, on towering
spikes, is, I think, the finest of all the ordinary Garden-
Irises. Most remarkable of all, too, pallida gives a
variegated variety which is genuinely beautiful. I only
know the silver-striped form, but there is also a variation
with golden stripes. But a well-grown mass of silver-
stripe is a notable addition to border or large rock-work,
the pale grey leaves, all slashed and lined with white, con-
trasting in double beauty against the sheaves of pale
lavender flowers above. And close to this may well stand
a robust, beautiful cousin of germanica, Iris Kochii of the
same ilk, with abundant big flowers of a dense rich violet.
Nor are any of these varieties at all inferior to the type
pallida or the type germanica in freedom and vigour
both of development and blossom. As for florentina,
the same praise belongs to its robustness and good-
temper ; it gives no variety that I know, but no one who
has ever seen it rioting on the edge of Olive gardens in
Provence will feel a grudge against it for that. Nothing
could improve upon the type. I have, as I told you,
married it to my beloved ¢ectorum, and though last season
was barren of blossoms, reasonably hope for results this
year. But a cold terror holds me against my will. Trises,
it is admitted, hybridise readily, and the seedlings flourish
198 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

like weeds, but sometimes they utterly refuse to flower—
yes, although they may have grown into masses many
yards in width. But perish this disheartening thought!
Down with it into the depths of the darkest cupboard at
the back of my consciousness !

Of the larger bearded Irises little more remains to tell.
There are some fine garden hybrids, of which Queen
Emma and Queen of May stand pre-eminent. Statellae
is of medium size, with globose flowers of sulphur-yellow ;
sambucina is particoloured and not conspicuous by the
side of germanica and pallida; as much may be said of
biflora, subbiflora, intermedia. But I have a magnificent
stout Unknown from the shores of Como, which, at
present, I suspect of being nearly related to pallida ; this
is very stalwart and tall, with leaves as fierce and broad
as a Phormium’s, and rare illustrious flowers of a lavender
that verges towards rose. Finally, of all these bearded
Irids, there is not one that will not thrive like grass
in any deep, well-drained soil, in any open, sunny
aspect.

Of the bulbous Irids I will now speak, but with tender-
ness and the delicacy of Agag. Indeed, in all I say on
Iris, I hope I may be understood to be speaking with the
most shrinking modesty. I am in no sense a connoisseur
or specialist on Iris. I specialise on too many other
things; and, besides, my anti-Irid climate forbids.
Therefore, though I have a number of species and
varieties, they are for purposes of decoration only, not
collation ; and I wander helpless among their names, as a
sheep that has no shepherd. Therefore let my unknown
correspondents, whose letters I so enjoy, be kindly in
their comments, and not scold; respecting my intrepidity
more than they reprehend my ignorant rashness in ven-
turing on so tangled a topic, of which, perhaps, they
themselves are perfect masters. The Irises are a difficult
IRIS 199

race ; and I only speak of them now loosely, and for the
purpose of guidance as to the adornment of the garden.
Well, as to the bulbous Irids, alata, histrio, bakeriana,
histrioeides, orchioeides, taurica, persica, Heldreichi, reticu-
lata and their kindred, hardly one of them is for me. For
sharp, rich, sandy soil, for perfect drainage, for dry cold
winters, for fierce, baking summers, all these are treasures
of loveliness through the griping early days of January and
February ; and those who revel in such conditions may
also revel in the bulbous Irises of the Levant. Here it is
impossible for me to supply drainage keen enough, a
summer warm enough, a winter dry and cold enough.
My conditions, in which Primulas and Gentians rejoice, is
slow death to the bulbous Irids; they barely endure the
long, soaking dreariness of autumn, the wet, open mildness
of winter; and then, with early spring, they send up,
perhaps, one hesitating, frail flower. A slug takes it as
a hors @euvre, a mouse for dessert ; what is left—a flap-
ping, torn relic—is washed threadbare with spring rains,
and splashed with mud until its original design and
colour can only be guessed. Next season, of course, the
wretched bulb prefers death to another such unprofitable
effort. One, only, has to be excepted from this dreary
list. Iris reticulata approves of me, and occasionally, for
some mysterious reason, prospers most unreasonably. In
one dank, shady border, there is a bulb that flowers obstin-
ately from year to year, and neither dies nor increases.
And, throughout the garden, I am liable to outbreaks of
unsuspected Jris reticulata every season. Perhaps of all
the bulbous species, too, reticulata is the loveliest, with
its thin rush-like leaves and its three-pronged flower of
intense violet, eyed with orange, and scented with the
fierce deliciousness of the violet whose colour it imitates.
Leichtlint is larger and paler, and the major form of
reticulata is also well spoken of, but the type reticulata is
200 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

not easily to be surpassed. As for the Irises of the
tubergeniana group—sindjarensis, willmottiana, orchi-
oeides—for these I should never have any use, not even if
I dwelt in Paradise and found the winters suitable.
These Irises are all of a densely leafy habit, and, from
the spire of flopping foliage, pierce flowers which, by
comparison, are insignificant and dull. Jris minuta and
Iris arenaria are novelties yet, of which I have no chance
to speak. Minuta is but newly arrived from Japan, and
T expect more from it in the way of health and charm
than I do from the sand-craving arenaria, which, from
its habit, threatens to be an abhorrer of damp.

The Irises of the grass-leaved group are rather incal-
culable than difficult. The first in importance is Jris
unguicularis, more commonly known as Iris stylosa. Few
plants differ more in habit according to circumstances.
In the South of France you will see it used as the edging
to beds on the blazing Mediterranean slope of Provence,
and there its foliage sinks into utter minute insignificance,
and the whole edging is a solid line of what looks like
magnified brilliant blossoms of crocus iridiflorus, dowered
with a delicious fragrance to which the Crocus is a
stranger. Then, again, you will see Iris uwnguicularis
thriving in an English garden, making a tall, close
jungle of leaves, lush and lanky enough to be confused
with the dishevelled clumps of the common Gladwin.
And there, far down in the thicket, nestle here and there
the wide sweet lavender cups of blossom. In point of
fact, the intense heat and sunlight of the south are the
plant’s favourite conditions, minimising leafage, and
educing the most reckless generosity in the matter of
bloom. But Iris unguicularis is of accommodating
temper, and, with any fair treatment, in good light soil,
in an open position, sheltered from the worst violence of
the wind, it will prosper and develop as imperturbably
IRIS 201

as any native. There are now scores, if not hundreds,
of gardens all England over that possess big established
tufts of Iris unguicularis, as solid and autochthonous in
appearance as if they had come over from Normandy
with all our ancestors in the train of Matilda Duchess.
The more sunshine you can give it, of course, and the
more exposure to sun, the better will the plant thrive
and bloom. But this sun-loving Algerian is as hardy as
anything need be, and will never suffer from any English
winter, unless you have been very brutal to it indeed in
the matter of soil and situation. Further, the dense,
spidery leafage into which our shadowy English climate
leads it has one very favourable result, for the exquisite
blossoms, peering up as they do into the sere, dead eye
of midwinter, must undoubtedly be ravished and spoiled
and dishonoured by rains and storms were it not for their
protecting nest of foliage, which would be so unnecessary
under the brilliant clear winter of Algiers. As for the
white ungwicularis, it is a flower straight from heaven—
a transcended snowy Crocus or Zephyranthes. The plant
is choice, but not much more delicate than the type—
though, being rare and so exquisite, it has a right to
extra-special attention in the matter of soil, site, and
guardianship.

Iris graminea and Iris prismatica are, roughly speaking,
miniatures of ungwicularis, blooming in early summer,
on short stems, amid a thin jungle of long grassy leaves.
The flowers are large, of thin build and design, in vary-
ing shades of purple. The prettier of the two, I think, is
I. graminea, which has a fine, hearty fragrance of plums ;
but both are perfectly easy to grow in any open place on
the rock-work, where they go on for many years and never
need any attention beyond, perhaps, the occasional stimu-
lant of a little fresh, rich soil, Jris dougiasiana is a vare,
new North American, of whom I can say little. Jris
202 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

tenax and Iris versicolor are also grassy-leaved Americans,
of which tenaw, I fancy, is the more brilliant. But I
have not yet done any great things with either. Iris
virginica I mention only to contemn, and. not because
it belongs among these grass-leaved kinds. In foliage
virginica is a straggling germanica; in flower it is too
often a small, wizened tubergeniana, which, by con-
trast with the rank, tall, leafy growth, is almost in-
solently mean and poor. Iris hexagona, which I only
grow in its superior form Lamancei, is a puzzle to me.
This is a very beautiful species, I am told, of medium
size. But I rather fancy it hails from Southern China,
and its constitution is not altogether beyond suspicion.
In any case I have had Lamancei now for many years, dwell-
ing perpetually in the same favourable spot, and never
advancing or retreating in prosperousness. It remains
rigidly as it always was, and quite declines to flower.

Of the Oncocyclus Irids I have already made my sad
plaint. Nor have I a more rosy tale to tell of the
Regelia section, which is supposed to be a shade easier
and stronger than the Cushion Irises. Among these
difficulties there are two, indeed, that I yearn to culti-
vate successfully—but never for me is such a golden
fate attainable. The two are susiana and Korolkowi.
Susiana is the gigantic, flag-flowered Mourning Iris,
which must have delighted Queen Elizabeth, so long has
it been in culture over here. This gorgeous Levantine
revels in hot, baked sand, and prospers, for instance,
most riotously, I believe, in the archiepiscopal garden at
Canterbury. But with me it will never do any good—
although it is a compatriot of Niobe, with whose lachry-
mose habits one would have thought my summers and
winters so harmonious and sympathetic. Never, never,
I fear me, shall I behold those vast, swelling flowers,
exactly like inferior, flimsy blotting-paper, all blotched
 

M.

IrIS TECTORU
IRIS 203

and lined and streaked and splashed and mottled with
inferior ink.

As for Iris Korolkowi, this alone among its capricious
kindred has really stirred my love and enthusiasm. I
can make a manful stand against the charms of Jris
paradoxa, I can even bear up against the beauty of
Iris Lorteti with not more than a shooting pang of envy,
but I collapsed utterly on my first sight of Iris Korolkowi.
This, in its best forms (the inferior, ordinary ones are
dull and comparatively uninteresting), is a slender
grower, rising to a couple of feet at the most, and bear-
ing one or two elongated, gracious flowers, whose colour
is an indescribable mixture of fawn and brown, with the
clearest, gentlest, electric blue. I would go any lengths
to grow this, but I never have. Like all its kin, it
clamours for light, limy loam, fierce drainage, hot
summers, and dry winters—a hopeless demand to make
on me. But, given these requirements, none, I think, of
the Regelias and Oncocyclus groups can be fairly accused
of half-hardiness; genuine half-hardies are Iris sinenis,
or fimbriata, and Iris Milesii, of which fimbriata, common
enough in Japan, is an enlargement of my heart’s best
love, gracilipes, and Milesti, a diminished, inferior form
of tectorum. As a matter of fact, as fimbriata is common
in Japan, it should be quite possible, if it were worth
while, to get plants from some cold district, and so make
sure of having it perfectly hardy in England.

Dainty Iris nepalensis, of which Mr. Eden Phillpotts
writes with such enthusiasm, I have never yet possessed ;
nor, if I did, do I believe I should succeed in keeping it
for long. As for the new Regelio-Oncocyclus hybrids, I
have read flaming advertisements, I have ticked off their
names amorously in high-price catalogues, but I have not
hitherto bought any ; their names are classical and fitting,
which is a rare mercy in the garden (O namer of these
204 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

Irises, my heartiest thanks and sympathy to you!); and
one is strongly tempted by Charon, Aspasia, Iphigeneia.
And yet, and yet, from what I have so far seen of these
trumpeted beauties at Horticultural Shows, they might
more suitably be called after Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Brown,
and Mrs. Robinson. Truth to tell, they have, so far as
I have seen, large and rather undistinguished flowers,
coloured in those dim, indeterminate, and muddy tones
which pass muster for artistic to so many aspiring tastes.
For these, as for the many hideous intermediate pinks
and magentas of the newer Oriental Poppies, let all
who ignorantly crave after fashion grow ecstatic; true
gardeners will always know without telling that a flower’s
one claim to beauty and adoration rests in its unstained
clarity of simple or combined colour. Nor does this
definition exclude the subtlety that is such a charm in
Iris Korolkowi, Dianthus neglectus, Anemone robinsoniana ;
nor, on the other hand, must subtlety ever be confounded
with mere muddiness of tone and lack of any definite
colour at all.

Who is there in England that grows Jris setosa and
Iris laevigata? And yet of these two ignored parents
has been born the Iris of all Irises, the Iris of Japan.
Iris Kaempferi takes the stage with a brazen flourish of
trumpets; there is nothing like it in the garden for
arrogance, for subtlety, for obviousness, for sheer insolent
violence of beauty. No taste, not the most crude and
immature, not the most delicate and over-refined, can
refuse its homage, its instinctive, gasping homage, to the
first glimpse of that royal Japanese Iris. Its appeal is
almost scornful in its innocence of all appeal; you have
to worship the thing, whether you will or no, and the
plant condescends to no wiles to conciliate your feelings.
And the heartless splendour of Kaempferi has its reward.
One adores it as something supreme, one loves it reluc-
IRIS 205

tantly, abjectly, as something irresistible; one never
dares feel tenderly towards it as towards Iris gracilipes,
or absorb oneself happily in its loveliness as one can sink
deep into the sympathies of Iris tectorum. It is the
difference in personality ; one might as soon dare to feel
tenderly towards Queen Elizabeth—proudly, gloriously,
adoringly—yes, but it is only for the milder, softer,
weaker beauties that one may feel tenderness. The
others claim our worship from on high, from the exalta-
tion of a superior sphere; only the gentler lovelinesses
appeal to us on our own plane, and, in their meek appeal,
pay a subtle compliment to the strength of our own
natures. And, if it be a vain fancy to find personalities
in flowers, then many gardeners, I believe, staid and
respectable people, are guilty, in their secret hearts, of
vain, delightful fancies. And therefore I make no defence
or apology; those who understand will sympathise ;
those who do not understand would never do so did I
explain and analyse till all the plants in all the world had
run to seed and made way for altered forms. To take
the Violas, for an instance. Always, to me, the gentle face
of Viola calcarata is the face of that gentle, ineffectual
Renata d’Este, who bege~ .d ended her life so much
more happily as Renée de Valois; Viola biflora, quiet,
shy, recondite, is ‘cette pauvre jeune reine Jeanne’ who
moved Diane de Poictiers to her one flash of emotion ;
as for Diane herself, respectable, prosaic, and _ solid,
where will you find her soul but in some obese Pansy
in a border? And Viola pedata, freakish, whimsical,
humorously sad and tender, surely this is the Margaret
of Margarets herself, My Lady Margaret of Angoulesme
and Navarre; so Iris Kaempferi, audacious, arrogant,
short-lived, is a memory of Queen Anne Boleyn, enshrin-
ing the ambition, the self-sufficiency, the violence of that

indomitable nature.
206 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

A proof of the brilliant scornfulness inherent in the
Japanese Iris may be found in the undeniable fact that
it will never tolerate being mixed with other plants.
The Japanese Iris has no place in the garden, no place in
the companionship of the bog. It must have a tract to
itself, and be planted, not in isolated clumps, but in
tracts and masses. Then, perhaps, you may arrange
Trollius among it for early summer, and Gentiana
asclepiadea to come on in August and September; but
it is always fatal and ridiculous to plant the Japanese
Iris in individual crowns among commoner neighbours.
The Japanese themselves fully recognise this, and in all
gardens, public or private, Jris Kaempfert has a broad
bed to itself away from other things. There is one ex-
ception, of course, to this rule, and that is that a lonely
clump of the Iris is allowed to look superb, to strike the
keynote of the whole composition, when set by itself, in
a commanding position, on the edge of some lake, at the
bend of some stream. But even here the rule holds good,
and the effect depends on the complete isolation of the
Iris. Any companionship of weaker lines will ruin the
whole scheme at once. No plant in the garden has quite
the same mixture of stiffness and grace; the sheaf of
slender stems, all of arrowy straightness, scarcely diverg-
ing as they rise from their common base, give a clean,
fierce strength of line to a clump of Iris Kaempferi such
as you will see nowhere else. A good crown of Bambusa
nigra, indeed, has the same grace, and more divergence,
though it doubles the grace at the expense of the stiff-
ness, and so loses the tart elegance, at once crisp and
archaic, that delights one in the decorative force of the
Iris. Of course, planted in masses and rows like potatoes,
one loses this effect. But then one barters it willingly,
perhaps, for the blaze of colour that results from such an
arrangement. ‘This is how you see Iris Kaempferi in the
IRIS 207

gardens of Horikiri—a little, shallow vale of an acre or
two, a river-spate, in its time, of blue and purple splen-
dour, where the Irises are so crowded that hardly a leaf
can be seen, rari nantes in gurgite vasto of that swirling
kaleidoscopic tide. And dotted here and there are little
summer-houses of wood and thatch, open on all sides,
where one drinks pale tea brought by Elder Sister, with
a painted fan and a few Iris blooms wrapped up in paper
—and then writes poetry to the ecstatising glory of the
flowers all around.

There are many schools, schisms, heresies, heterodoxies
as to the treatment, in England, of the Japanese Iris,
and, by dint of all these, the plant has acquired a doubt-
ful reputation that I do not think it deserves. There is,
to start with, one great predominant pon’r in the culture
of Iris Kaempferi. Never plant it in shady places, in
hollows of the wood, and so forth. If you do this it will
possibly grow well and permanently, but it will never
flower, or very rarely. It is dependent for its bloom and
general welfare on complete exposure to the sun (at
least this is my firm and pious, though humble, convic-
tion). After this, all is uncertainty. I have even heard
of Iris Kaempferi rioting in beauty on a high, hot, and
sandy slope (history did not say how long it continued
to do so, urges my scepticism). I have heard of it, I say,
luxuriating or failing, in the most improbable places, and
altogether the question seems as hopeless of final canonical
settlement as that of the right culture for Lilium candi-
dum. Perhaps, like a theological dogma, or the cat’s
inquiry about the historical precedence of owl and egg,
there is no real end or answer, no definite, unalterable
right or wrong.

There is one consideration, before I try to deal with
the matter by the light of my own experience, that, I am
sure, has helped to shed doubt and uncertainty over the
208 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

plant’s requirements. Jris Kaempferi, in normal circum-
stances, takes two full seasons, if not three, to become
established and show its true character, no matter how
favourable the site and soil in which it has been put.
And some gardeners, seeing their plants apparently lan-
guishing, although in excellent conditions, have probably
despaired too soon, and thrown the plant up as a bad
job ; whereas, had they been patient, the Iris would have
come to its own in its own good time. Again, in a bad
situation, the Iris is capable of making a wild morbid
display in its first season, and then dying outright—
following nature’s law by which a moribund plant tends
to throw its expiring forces into a last desperate outbreak
of blossom, before inevitable death descends. This trick
is deadly and delusive, with its fallacious suggestion of
prosperity; and some growers, finding their Irises a
miracle of bloom the first year, and dead corpses the
next, may be too prone to condemn the thing, offhand,
as capricious, incalculable, and unsatisfactory.

Now, as to the culture at Horikiri, where the summer,
I'll remind you, is wet and torrid, the winter dry and
icebound. Here the Iris is grown in fields of liquid
manure. All through the growing season water is ad-
mitted as into a rice-field. Then when the flower-buds
are forming the water is cut off, and no more is admitted
till the next spring, leaving the plants as dry as the
climate will allow all through summer, autumn, and
winter. The one thing certain is that Iris Kaempferi
will never grow well and permanently in water, but must
be treated as an ordinary dry-ground plant, during about
three-quarters of its existence. From my own experience
I should be inclined to say that the most important
point to aim at is thoroughly efficient planting at the
outset. Make your soil as rich as you can possibly make
it, and as heavy too—though of course with efficient
IRIS 209

drainage. Then get sound young crowns of the Iris, put
them in and leave them patiently alone, only taking care
to keep them clean of weeds and grass—a companionship
that the haughty creature hates. On the question of
moisture I am not inclined to be Rhadamanthine ; in my
own moist climate I have not specially troubled to keep
the Irises supplied with special extra moisture, though, in
both gardens, my tracts of Iris Kaempferi lie in and out
of the bog. If the soil is heavy and rich, almost enough
has been done: the roots are secure against starvation
and drought. And my own suggestion would be that
more harm is done to Jris Kaempferi in England by over-
attention in the matter of water than in any other way.
Grow it in very cool, rich, heavy soil, open to the sun,
and leave it undisturbed. Then, provided your climate
supplies a certain amount of rain—especially in early
summer—you should do well. And, of course, if your
climate be fatally dry, you will have to supply some
artificial moisture. But not, I advise, too much, nor too
persistent. People who see a plant blooming in a bog
are too apt to conclude that it requires soaking wet all
through the year; as a matter of fact many, if not most,
bog-plants enjoy their season of comparative dryness.
Few cultivated plants have a wider range of colour
than the Japanese Iris—ranging, as it does, from the
creamiest pure white, through every shade of mauve,
purple, and imperial violet, to a blue so intense as almost
to verge on azure. But I would—this as a matter of
personal taste, not of doctrine, and therefore not entailing
thirty-nine distinct damnations if you trip upon it—
that you exercise care in your choice of Japanese Irises.
Do not buy job lots, do not buy unnamed sorts, or named
sorts without description. For there are many double
and semi-double varieties, and there are also very many
mottled, splotched, splashed, streaky forms—even more
o
210 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

like bad blotting-paper than Iris sustana—which, to be
truly complimentary, really recalls a piece of grey
Japanese silk-crape. Now there are many who adore
these mottled horrors, for mottled horrors I will intoler-
antly continue to call them (‘and I wish they was in
Jonadge’s belly, I do’). For such let them abound; I
merely offer my warning to those who love, as I do, clear,
clean shades of colour. As to the double and semi-
double forms I dare not speak so drastically. I have
seen some hideous ones, tight, bunchy, voluminous, devoid
of elegance or beauty of line; I have also seen some very
stately ones, like huge blooms of Clematis. On the whole,
I would eschew double varieties entirely, and keep an
open mind about good, graceful semi-doubles. For the
benefit of those who see Iris Kaempferi in Japan I would
here note that the exquisite crimson-veined white and
pink ones that one sees and pounces on out there are not
genuine varieties, but dyed, for the time, by insertion
into some acid. So that the lot of those who purchase
plants of these delusive lovelinesses is hard indeed, and
pitiful.

Iris Stbirica introduces us to a very valuable group of
Irises which are genuine water-side plants, and quite
invaluable for the edge of stream or bog. They are all
of the easiest possible culture, the utmost good-nature
and the most imperturbable permanence, needing no
attention at all from year to year, and quite capable of
being naturalised in some choice corner beside water. A
very strong family likeness marks them all, and sibirica
is their type—a slender tuft of dense, straight, slim
stems, carrying along their course half a dozen beautiful
and beautifully-shaped blossoms of pale blue, veined and
marbled all over with a deeper shade. Major, orientalis,
longiscapa, sanguinea are all varieties, of which the best
is major, having larger flowers than any. Then there is
IRIS 211

aw

a pale blue form, and a snow-white one, and a new im-
proved albino, Snow-queen, which, like major, has the
advantage of larger flowers—the one weakness of sibirica
being that its very pretty flowers, besides being indivi-
dually short-lived, are also rather small for the height of
their stems. Finally, I have, from a neighbouring
garden, plants of a giant sibirica, which originated
there from seed, and proves far and away the largest
and the most solidly brilliant of the group. Of the rare
new Delavayi I cannot say much. It is a later, large-
blooming cousin of stbirica; but I have never been at
home when my clumps bloomed, and therefore cannot
describe them except to say that they persist. Probably,
too, it is more nearly related to the tall sword-leaved
bog-species, of which gigantea is the chief. It is with
sibirica as with Kaempferi; the plant, as a rule, is better
in bulk than as isolated specimens. Its greatest triumph
is when arranged as a loose chain of tufts down the
winding shore of some lake or little stream. My
own memory of it is at daybreak, in levels round the
shallow end of a Japanese lake. The solid earth was all
a waving sea of blue Iris; and, beyond, the pale water
of the lake lay motionless without a ripple, carrying the
flawless reflection of Fujiyama, pure in snow, a dozen
miles away through the clear breathless hush of dawn.
Of the other Japanese Irises, I can but mention my
glimpse of a conspicuous deep-sapphire one, tall and stal-
wart, of the gigantea kindred, I think, which I saw one day
on my way up to Nikko. And then there is the rare, rich
albo-purpurea, which has recently come into cultivation,
and seems to be now causing grief and searchings of
heart. It is being, I expect, too much treated as a bog-
plant, requiring incessant wet. I should here repeat my
suggestion about Kaempferi, and, to foster confidence,
will here mention, rather late in the day, perhaps, that I
212 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

have certainly made a fine and permanent success of
Iris Kaempferi. It is early days, as yet, perhaps, to say
so much of Iris albo-purpurea, with its white variety ; but,
as far as I can see, under the same treatment as I gave
Kaempferi, these rare beauties are now advancing on the
same happy way, and I look forward, this season, to their
big white and purple blossoms. And last of all comes
an Iris near sibirica, which I bought at a Night-Fair in
Tokio, and which has since developed into two enormous
bushes of narrow, flopping foliage, emitting from their
thickets a sheaf of tall stalks with disproportionately
large flowers, opulent, solid, creamy-pure.

The Spanish and the English Iris are both bulbous,
but of cheerfuller temper than any of their cousins from
the Levant. However, except for light dry soils, in light
dry climates, I would hardly recommend Jris xiphioeides as
a certain perennial for the rock-garden. Far different is
it with the gorgeous old English Iris, whose huge, deep
azure flowers make the pride of many a cottage-garden.
Iris Xiphion is, I believe, a southerner and Spaniard of
very limited distribution, and yet this outlander has so
happily established itself with us as to have acquired the
ridiculous name of English Iris (while, by another ironical
paradox, it is the Iris called germanica that is the Royal
Lily of old France). Iris Xiphion has many varieties in
the way of colour, but none, to my mind, touches the com-
mon midnight blue—which has the further pride of being
the most vigorous of the many vigorous forms of Xiphion.
All it requires is to be let alone for ever and ever in any
good garden loam ; and in crowded, rough corners of the
rock-garden it makes a splendid patch of colour, which
may punctually be relied on to appear each season with
the coming of June.

Xiphion and xiphioeides bring one back to the tricera-
tops form of flower—the triple prong—as distinguished
IRIS 213

from the fuller and more satisfying rotundity of the flag-
shape, and from the clematoid broad magnificence of
éectorum and Kaempferi. Others of this persuasion are of
prime importance for the large bog; and of these the
sovereign is Iris gigantea—the tallest grower of all,
with immense great sword-like stiff leaves, and big flowers
of creamy-white and orange, which are only just not big
enough for the stature and general appearance of the
plant. This, with all its cousinhood, is an easy and
splendidly persistent plant in any cool moist soil, making
a fine feature at the head of a lake, or in some deep damp
nook, with its eight or ten feet of height, and its keen,
fierce foliage stiff and stern as a New Zealand Flax.
Similar, but not quite so great and high, are longifolia,
aurea, Monnieri, spuria, their hybrid Monspur, and another
hybrid called A. J. Balfour. Then comes the smaller
Iris cuprea, with which I have never done much—more
from lack of effort, I think, than for lack of anything
else. Then with regard to our own two native Irises—
pseud-acorus and foetidissima, let me enter a word of
caution. oetidissima is merely dull and harmless, with
attractive seed-pods that open in autumn and winter,
revealing rows of brilliant scarlet seeds amid the sere
foliage. But pseud-acorus is a cunning creature, against
whose wiles one must be watchful. It looks so mild and
innocent that one admits it to the garden for old sake’s
sake. As soon as it gets there it sets to work growing
like Jack’s bean-stalk, and seeding like a groundsel.
Years of effort will hardly rid you of the common yellow
Flag-Iris, if once you admit it; and I assure the believing
that I have seen it, under cultivation, grown to twice the
stature of a full-grown man, an enormous, tropical-look-
ing weed, making the Aloes ashamed, and wiping the
Phormiums off the face of the earth. With what wry-
mouthed disgust did the poor gardener contemplate that
214 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

gigantic invader, that overgrown cuckoo which he himself
had unwittingly introduced into his pleasure-ground of
choice rarities, and now could not hope to be quit of,
except with dynamite and digging enough for the founda-
tions of great Babylon. And the moral of this tale is,
always be very careful how you admit a native into culti-
vation. You never can tell when, instead of a meek
angel, you will find yourself entertaining a rampant devil
unawares, and totally unable to be rid of him.
THE MOUNTAIN BOG 215

CHAPTER XI
Che Mountain Bog

Anp now, having clothed the high banks and outlying
copsy slopes of our ideal dell, let us gladly come to the
furnishing of the choice open space in the middle, where
a tank of concrete, as large as you can make it, has been
filled with light and pleasant soil, provided with drainage-
holes and outlets, and given a gentle little brook to
meander across its surface. Not, as I have said before—
and now repeat for the encouragement of the dispirited—
not that the concrete tank is at all inevitably necessary.
If you have drainage, and running water, and light rich
soil, you will have no need of it; the concrete tank is
simply my ideal precaution which can never do any harm,
and which may, in a blazing climate, devoid of rain, and
on a parching sandy soil, devoid of nutritious elements
and running water, give you lasting joy in a bog-garden
where you otherwise could not have one at all. Of
course, where ideals are to be talked of, probabilities no
longer count; and I will now be brave enough to say
that in my own dearest, most private ideal, the choice
bog-garden shall not be, as I have so far timidly pre-
tended, in the depth of a shallow dell or hollow, ringed
in by lush leafage of lily and fern and giant harebell.
No; it shall be high up—high, high up, on a bare
shoulder of the rock-work. Behind it lofty cliffs of stone
shall converge to a cafion at the end, through which a
216 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

stream shall come Lodoring, to disperse itself in runnels
over the shoulder, and to leap thence, down a steep
precipice, into a little lake below. If you are, by some
monstrous favouritism of the gods, blessed with such a
golden possibility as this, I will smash the Tenth Com-
mandment first, and hurl its fragments at your head;
but I will then be generous and confess that you will
have the loveliest bog-garden in the country, if you fill
the open space between your cliffs with stone-chips and
light soil, surfacing it, too, with larger flakes and debris
of the mountain limestone. And then, and then, on that
rock-strewn shoulder, permeated with running moisture,
incessantly, violently draining downwards, you will plant
every glorious little bog-plant of the highest Alps and
Himachal, and they will glory in so delightful a repro-
duction of their own chosen dwelling-places in the hills.
Thus, if you are lucky in avoiding the neighbourhood of
large incongruous features, such as trees, houses, or big
shrubs, you may possibly attain the illusion of a high
lonely corner of the mountains—and will, in any case,
certainly be much closer to it than if you merely have
your bog at the bottom of a hollow, with copse and
woodland plants all round. But this cherished dream of
mine presupposes so many things, as to stand beyond
realisation by the general run of gardeners. The ordinary
scheme is good enough, and only less good than the
best.

But wherever you have your bog, I advise great atten-
tion to the surfacing. It is extraordinary to me the way
gardeners cherish excessive stoniness in big stones (which
are oppressive and ugly in effect), and utterly neglect the
beauty and value of small broken chips. I am not now
talking of the actual moraine-garden, which is too impor-
tant thus lightly to be dismissed; but the ordinary rock-
garden slope or pocket—the flat surface of the bog, are a
THE MOUNTAIN BOG 217

hundred times more beautiful, a hundred times more
verisimilar, a hundred times better adapted to their
purpose, if thickly powdered with a surface of broken
limestone chips, varying from the size of one’s thumb to
that of a baby’s hand. These stones give drainage, preserv-
ing moisture, and carrying moisture away for storage ; they
offer protection, nourishment and guidance to the wander-
ing roots; they enable underground runners to form their
natural scattered colonies; they afford coolth in hot
summer, and comfortable assistance in winter. And all
this, finally, because of their greatest recommendation.
For it is among just such broken rock that all these
Alpine little bog-plants grow in their native places, and
it is amid just such cool grey flakes that their gentle
brilliance of carmine, azure, or lavender shines most
delicate and pure.

And yet, despite these obvious reflections, too many
gardeners, luxuriating in superabundance of big, ugly
rock, ignore the use and charm of small broken stone.
The usual idea of a rock-garden is that of a wilderness
of huge rocks, as big as you can afford, jostled together
as close as they can stick, and then peppered with plants.
Against this I would cry, with a loud voice, the paradox
that in the rock-garden it is far easier to use too much
stone than too little. Do not have a serried mass of
rock; have surfaces of flat and sloping soil, with big
stones suggested rarely, here and there, emerging perhaps
in one bold crest or bluff, giving the restrained effect of
the genuine mountains, which do not wear all their bones
on the surface, but protrude them where they must, at
worn, weather-beaten angles of their slope. Compared
with these glorious originals, too many rock-gardens go
astray in ostentatious superfluity of stone—yes, I must
say it, from Sir Frank Crisp’s luxurious compilation of
rock, down through many a milder, smaller composi-
218 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

tion. And if people would only realise how little stone
is necessary to the good rock-garden, they would also
realise, as one pleasant consequence among many, how
cheap and easy it is to make a rock-garden. You don’t
want many rocks, nor mighty ones; you want skill and
discernment in placing the very few you really require.
Let this encourage many thousands more to cultivate
Alpines.

I think that of all corners of the world the Alpine bog
is the most wholly sparkling and deifying there can be.
Hemmed in by the rich heaviness of tropical forests, I
gasp and catch my breath at the memory of certain
glittering Oread-haunted meadows, ten thousand feet
above the ordinary world. The thought of them, amid
the dense warmth, is a sudden plunge into water cold
and clear and radiant as diamond; it arrests the pulses
of the heart for a dizzy instant, then sets them leaping
forward with redoubled zeal.—Or perhaps it is the naked,
lonely valley of Upper Tees, rolling away in mile after
mile of purple and yellow Pansies, girt in by huge slug-
gish hills, and filled with a clean silence and an utter
loneliness beyond imagination. Here, on broken places
above the little bogs, shine in the short herbage wide
stars of Gentiana verna. Were the soaking shingle of
the streams is tufted with golden masses of Sawifraga
aetzoeides, and on their banks rise the dull violet spikes
of Barisia alpina. Lovg and faithful search, perhaps, will
show you treasures even more sacrosanct—fair frail
Arenaria uliginosa, in the marshes of Widdy Bank, and
Viola arenaria on dry patches of the upper slopes; or
Saxifraga Hirculus, dwindling to extinction in the very
stream-bed of Cronkley. High in black humus-bogs of
the Fell lives tiny, fairy-like Thalictrum alpinum, and
Rubus Chamaemorus makes carpets of its vine-like leaves
over the upmost moors.
THE MOUNTAIN BOG 219

Or again, perhaps, it may be a level tract I know,
beyond the last white limestone pavement at the base of
Ingleborough. The great mountain, close overhead, lies
lazily against heavy cloud-masses in the west, the long
sleepy lines of its eastern slope looming dark, in blue and
violet, against the gloom behind. And at one’s feet lies
a strange ground, like the foundation of a vast Cyclopean
temple, built so long ago, and so very long ago destroyed,
that its very foundation-stones are now rubbed smooth
and shapeless by the tireless persistence of wind and rain,
through countless ages. Underfoot lie couched amorphous
masses of white rock, flush with the soft fine grass, their
flat surface worn and rounded into innumerable hollows,
bays and inlets, held by invading vegetation, small and
Alpine. Water pervades the place too, and shines in
patches of pure silver here and there in the depressions of
the boulder, or spreads in brown patches that reflect the
sky and cloud above. And here, on the damp stone
itself, Sedum villosum, lovely treasure in a tiresome race,
lifts its large waxy stars of soft pink on tiny, two-inch
stems; here the common Eyebright grows dwarf and
pretty ; here Primula farinosa illumines the greyness of
the rock, the russet of the grass, with the rosy heads
of her blossom; and here, in undrained hollows of each
slab, where humus has gathered from a hundred thou-
sand generations of dead plants, Arenaria gothica spreads
his wee brilliant branches of green, and opens his big
snowy stars. The place stands so high that its horizon
seems the rim of the world. None of the valleys can be
guessed ; to the west the dominant mass of Ingleborough
fills the sky; to the east, over the last edge of the up-
land, all that can be seen is the leonine bulk of Peny-
ghent, far away across six miles and more of invisible
valley and fell. And the silent loneliness of this stony
level is august and absorbing ; rarely, now and again, it
220 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

is intensified by the whistle of a curlew, high above
against the driving clouds, or completed by the desolate
resentful wail of the peewit.

But more than all, perhaps, if any one will have
patience with these cheap Cook’s Tours of reminiscence,
count in my love the bogs and streams of the highest
Alps. Not above all, perhaps, for the very limitations of
the English uplands give them a charm greyer and more
subtle in some ways than the riotous, unrestrained fer-
tility of the higher Alps. But the sombre magnificence of
Ingleborough is sometimes harsh and cold and uncon-
ducive to one’s moods; the glory of the Alps is always
obvious and irresistible, at least to those whose artificial
tastes are not repelled by the obvious. Alas that such
things should be, but there are actually people who * do
not like the Alps, who think them banal and chromo-
lithographic! O pale cold hearts, corrupted with
terror of admiring the obvious, whose jaded pulse will
not let itself be stirred by anything that they cannot
think bizarre, recondite, beyond the comprehension of the
profane crowd! Thus, in their loves and hates, they are
for ever flattering their own vanity, and proving to
themselves that they are not as other men—a needless
proof, too, for all I know who have hammered out this
horrid heresy about the mountains, are people of such
charm that they need no other claim to a pinnacle high
above their tedious fellow-mortals. Yet, in this one vital
spot they are weak, lacking courage to adore the easy.
They are of the same blood with those who pretend that
the rose and the diamond are not worshipful, because
they are common. But I will not dive into an analysis
of that mysterious and even incomprehensible state of
soul which confuses beauty with rarity ; I might dissect
for ever without result. Instead, I will turn to those
who have sound, happy minds, and now invite them to
THE MOUNTAIN BOG 221

join me in my wanderings up the side of an Alpine
rivulet, splashing through its bogs and luxuriating in its
treasures,

At first starting, one meets the stream, a brawling
torrent, foaming down through the pine woods. Amid
the dense gloom of their branches the sunlight, here and
there, pours shafts of brilliant gold upon the leaping
snow of the stream, and, in rare patches of light the oak-
fern’s green fronds shine with their almost unnatural
brilliance of emerald. Round the roots of the pine-trees, in
the unruffled stillness of their shade, spreads a thick soft
carpet of moss, starred with the white waxen cups of
Pyrola uniflora. So the course of the water continues
downwards through the wood, and, as we mount, we pass
through thickets of tall yellow Monkshood. Then, per-
haps, along beneath a little cliff, stretches a bed of
Lactuca alpina, luxuriating in the dankness. It is
strange to see this stalwart, splendid plant, six feet high
or so, crowned with a head of crowded purple dandelions,
thus forming into broad spreading colonies, when one
remembers that it still clings, in rare lonely specimens, to
inaccessible damp rocks high up in the ranges of Clova
and Lochnagar. And yet, in cultivation, it is no less
easy than handsome, for any rich corner. Now, in the
forest, we are in the track of many splendid, riotous
water-plants. Perhaps we may come upon the very rare
Hugueninia tanacetifolia, like a big yellow Valerian,
which haunts wet wooded places in the Valaisan Alps.
In any case we see the Valerians themselves, and, in more
open places, the loose white stars of Sawxifraga rotundi-
folia, stout and sturdy, or the palmate leaves and white
showers of Ranunculus aconitifolius. And then, not at
the water’s edge, but up on the knoll of some decayed
tree-stump, sprouts from the rotten soil one arching
plume of Streptopus amplewicaulis, like a tall branched
222 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

Solomon’s Seal, with waxy bells and scarlet berries. On
the same knoll rise the airy purple spikes of Prenanthes
purpurea, and perhaps the Great Solomon’s Seal itself.
Polygonatum verticillatum occurs rarely, in isolated,
small groups of three or four stems. Set apart from its
kindred by the arrangement of its leaves in whorls, this
graceful Solomon’s Seal, always of local occurrence, is
found in copses near Bellingham in Northumberland,
and about the banks of the Tay. So far I have not made
any solid success in the cultivation of it. Far different is
the case with the May Lily, which now carpets the ground
amid the oak-fern. Of Maianthemum bifolium, with -
pairs of glossy heart-shaped leaves, and fluffy little white
spikes of blossom, I have always had the greatest pleasure,
and now am naturalising it in the woods—an easy task,
seeing that its one station as an English wild plant is
in a wood at the other end of Yorkshire. Here and
there among the May Lilies, in the darkest places, you
may see the dingy, mud-coloured spikes of a little sapro-
phyte Orchis, Corallorhiza imnata, whose flowers are like
sere, rotten imitations of a flower, cut, a@ la Japonaise,
out of lard. This is impossible of culture, and its chief
interest is that this, too, is a rare native of our northern
woods. As for Epipogon aphyllum, weirdest and most
monstrous of morbid beauties, with its fleshy, lurid flower
turned the wrong way round (like that of Odontoglossum
pulchellum), and its general aspect of bruised, decaying
flesh, purplish and livid, this has only twice occurred in
England, saprophytic on rottenness by ditch-sides in one
Hertfordshire wood, and so incalculably rare is it all the
world over that you may think yourself fortunate indeed
if ever you come across it in similar positions near stream
or hollow of a Swiss forest.

Now, as you mount, the torrent begins to course
through more open land. The forest thins off, and you
 

CysTOPTERIS MONTANA AND MARANTHEMUM BIFOLIUM IN THE
OLD GARDEN.
THE MOUNTAIN BOG 223

emerge in broad hay meadows, bending blue with huge
old clumps and dense colonies of Gentiana asclepiadea.
Here and there glows a belated golden globe of Trollius,
abundant in its season as in the meadows of the High
Force, or round the source of the Ribble under the
northern end of Ingleborough. Ranunculus aconitifolius
is here, too, and glorious Thalictrum aquilegifolium, and
a broad stretch of Epipactis palustris, vaguely recalling a
small and oddly leafy version of Ocontoglossum pulchel-
lum, with pretty flowers of rose and white. Of other
Marsh Orchises there are our handsome natives, mascula
and maculata, both loving rich soil, damp rather than
dry, and both quite easy to establish, if only you take the
bulbs in autumn, being careful not to break the clod in
which you dig them up. Both these luxuriate in the
water-meadows of Swiss streams, and in size of spike
almost recall their big brother, Orchis foliosa, from
Madeira, a gigantic maculata, with dense, six-inch spears
of purplish blossom, which is perfectly hardy and easy in
rich damp soil, in a fairly sheltered, well-drained situa-
tion. Orchis militaris, with its near relations, Simia and
Sambucina, are very handsome plants of similar persua-
sion, but dislike excessive damp, rare species from
meadows in Southern England. Another pretty native,
Morio, is hardly distinct enough for admittance to the
garden ; ustulata is quaint and inconspicuous; as for the
gigantic, monstrous Lizard Orchis, with its vast-tailed,
stinking flowers of greenish tone, this plant, so rare that
there are perhaps only two specimens or so still lurking
in Kent and the South, is a kind that craves for hot,
dry, chalky soil and baking summer heat. But Orchis
laxiflora is a brilliant, loose-spiked cousin of Mascula,
hardly less rare than Orchis hircina, an alien immigrant
upon ballast-hills at Hartlepool (and perhaps native, like
so many rarities, to the Channel Islands), which is pleased
224 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

with damp soil in a sheltered corner, though it is not
more delightful than our own native, Habenaria conopsea,
with long, thin, pink spikes of delicious fragrance. I can-
not say as much for a notable American Cypripedium,
second of its race for damp, rich treatment.

For with Cypripedeum acaule I have never been able to
do anything at all. This dwarf species, with two leaves,
and then a vast, bellying, pink pouch, folded double in the
middle, is, I believe, the most southerly of the hardy
Slippers, both in latitude and situation. For it frequents
woods in the United States, and though Mr. Smith of
Newry seems to grow it quite happily, with me it has
never proved really winter-hard, though I have tried
every possible soil and situation for it. A cold dry
winter would probably please it a great deal better than
our muggy, wet ones. Anyhow, in whatever light, warm,
sandy stuff I put it, Cypripedium acaule, after flowering,
goes home to mother earth in the normal course, but
never comes back again.

Even more limited has been my experience with Cypri-
pedium guttatum, a rare and most beautiful species from
high dank woods all over Asia, through Siberia to Japan.
I have never collected it, but apparently it haunts the
mountain forests in the very thickest darkness of the
pines, where it enjoys the black, cool humus of incalcul-
able ages. The flower is small and rather hoody in out-
line, but wonderfully dappled with crimson and purple
ona white ground. I have tried the plant only once,
and then with little success. And it is by no means easy
to get hold of unless one can manage to collect it for
oneself.

The lesser American Cypripediums, candidum, parvi-
florum, and pubescens, are all easy doers and pretty species,
growing as much as two feet high, with numerous flowers
that, in pubescens and parviflorum, have yellow slippers—
THE MOUNTAIN BOG 225

very like those of Calceolus, which, indeed, they replace in
the New World—while parviflorum has the most fascinat-
ing, pure white pouches, that look like birds’ eggs. I have
found all these perfectly thrifty in any cool, rather rich,
light soil, such as the Cypripediums love—though I am
not sure that they are particularly long-lived. Cypri-
pedium arietinum is a rare North American whom I only
flowered once, a very curious, attractive creature with a
blunt-nosed pouch which, with the waved petals, gives
the plant its titular resemblance to a ram’s head. This
throve for a while in similar ground to that which suited
the other compatriots ; though now, I fear, it has returned
to its long home.

T have little love for Adenostyles alpina, with its large
triangular colt’s-foot leaves, white on the reverse, and its
big flat heads of pinkish fluff. But this now abounds
by our Alpine stream, as we climb towards its upper
glades. And so it goes, through beds of buttercup and
many another casual golden beauty, till we leave the last
pine woods, and begin to mount over open ground, stony
and loose, in which the stream is diffused, and nourishes
in the damp débris Savifraga aeizocides, Campanula
pusilla, Campanula Scheuchzeri. On the ruins of a little
shelter you will see thick plumy tufts of Cystopteris alpina,
kindly and adaptable to a cool corner of the rock-work,
and the occupant, by some unguessable chance, of one
churchyard wall in Southern England.

Now we are over the ridge and nearing the last plain
before we accompany our stream up and up to its source
in the moraine and the unsleeping snows. In a narrow
channel it flows, no longer a stream but a streamlet.
Above its banks on one side hang loose curtains of
Primula viscosa from shady rocks ; on the other, a sunny
bank of grass is blue with the trumpets of Gentiana
acaulis. Down by the very water-side are hurrying

Pp
226 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

blooms of Soldanella alpina, which show that the snow
has only lately been melted from that deep gully, and
the roseate heads of Primula farinosa tell the same tale.
Then suddenly, as we climb, a splashing violence of blue
assails our eyes. It is the first tuft of Gentiana bavarica,
not to desert us now until we reach the final wastes of
stone and the realm of its cousin brachyphylla.

No colour that I know can touch that of the Bavarian
Gentian as you see it among the lush emerald grasses of
the mountain marshes—a blue, thanks to itself and its
setting, of the most pungent solid sapphire, rich and
dense. Gentiana bavarica is always beautiful; but I
think I never saw it lovelier than one day in late autumn
on the Brienzer Rothhorn. I had misguidedly made the
ascent of that hackneyed peak to see if by any chance I
could hap on Ranunculus rutaefolius, which is reported
from the slopes towards Sarnen. Early snows were
already descending, and the nights were hard with frost.
All day I toiled and caught nothing, slithering perilously
about on the glazed, rotten rocks of the northern cliffs,
after various alluring-looking buttercups, that always
turned out to be ordinary alpestris. So I gave up the
struggle and began to stroll down from the peak.
October had sent all the plants to their rest, and nothing
brilliant was to be seen. The air, too, was clear and
cold with the nip of autumn, filled with the indefinable
oppressive anguish of the world’s yearly death. Far
already on her downward journey was Our Lady Perse-
phone, carrying the flowers with Her to the underworld ;
and the frozen breath of Hades floated up through the
Gates of Death thrown wide for Her coming. And then,
in a little hollow, dank with molten snow-water, browned
and rotten with frost, I came upon a blooming crowd of
Bavarian Gentians. Their poor, brave flowers were half-
congealed, half-melted with soaking damp and frost, yet
THE MOUNTAIN BOG 227

still they flaunted their splendour unconquered, and made
that small wet dell a brilliant basin of blue. Alas! I
would that such persistence, such generosity, would mark
Gentiana bavarica in England. Give it the choicest place
in your choicest bog, nurse it up with silver sand and finest
mixtures. But it will seldom be permanent. Perhaps we
cannot give it rigours enough of climate—not sufficient
sternness at one moment of the year, and enough con-
tinuous encouragement at the other.

Now the stream has reached the plainland of the last
huts, the summer station of the cattle and their keepers.
Here is a little meadow, perfectly flat and smiling, through
which runs a placid brook as through many an English
lowland. Its banks are dense with common nettle and
blue Monkshood, thanks to the corrupting occupancy of
man, who, wherever he may go across the world, takes
with him all his weeds—moral, no less than vegetable, to
thrive abominably and wax gross in virgin soil. Beyond
the wooden huts lies a colony of boulders by the water-
side, fallen from the slope above, which rises starkly
overhead towards the moraine. On these huge rocks are
found earnests of the promise above us—WSenecio Doroni-
cum, Primulas, a few stray plants of Asplenium septen-
trionale and Lloydia serotina. ‘These are both natives,
but rarissimi, of North Wales. The fern is a strange,
wee thing, linear-leaved, forked like a serpent’s tongue;
the Spider’s-wort, from its tiny bulb, emits a few thread-
like leaves and then a dull white blossom like a star. I
quested for it once among the dark rocks in the Devil’s
Kitchen above Llyn Idwal. No place has ever so
daunted me ; on all sides black, awful precipices dropped
towards a black, unsmiling little lake far down at their
heart; clouds, gloom, and storm made the inhabitants of
that dreadful world. 'Timidly and abjectly I hunted the
Lloydia, frail pale Princess of so grim a keep. The
228 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

Devil's Kitchen is a black cafion opening, high above the
lake, into the flank of the Glydyrs. Its sides are dank
and inaccessible, narrowed like the Symplegades, wrapped
eternally in a damp and rayless twilight. Here, on
ledges of these adamantine walls, linger rare specimens
of the Spider-wort. But, though I searched long, I could
see nothing—nor, if I had, could I have climbed up to
reach it. And now that, after many years, I have found
and collected and grown the Lioydia, I chillily announce
that, except for sentiment’s sake, it is not worth the
collecting or the growing.

Now we have done with the plainland. The stream
brawls down upon us over a slope like a wall, and we
have to breast an incline so steep that our knees are
against the opposing earth at every step. At first we
climb past stunted masses of Gentiana nivalis, dazzling in
their light, clear ferocity of tiny azure stars; over great
rosy flowers of Trifolium alpinum, and amid the nodding
golden suns of Arnica montana; over the loose trails of
Veronica saxatils, brilliant with its short-lived blue blos-
soms, large and intense in colour, with a ring of crimson
at the base. Easiest and most thriving of Veronicas is this,
easy in every way, and a profuse, faithful seeder, my
favourite, almost, in its large but not very interesting race.
It occurs, rarely, on the Scottish mountains, and very
rarely indeed in its rose-coloured form, fruticulosa. Kirki,
guthrieana, and satureioeides are of the same nature,
though guthricana is paler and more bushy ; repens
forms a close mat of glossy leafage, hidden from sight
in summer by a myriad pale flowers, large and softly
blue; prostrata and rupestris are rampant, mat- and
curtain-forming Alpines, invaluable for the rock-garden,
developing sheets of azure in their time; filifolia grows
erect into a filmy fuzz of fine greenery, starred with
china-blue blossoms; belldioeides is simply pale and
THE MOUNTAIN BOG 229

dowdy; Allioni is simply dark and dowdy, despite its
great rarity, which leads one to expect marvels from its
dense, close carpet of branches, clothed with rounded
leaves in pairs. Alpina is the bitterest disappointment.
The name ought to be a guarantee of worth; but Veronica
alpina is pallid and minute of blossom, totally without
value; as for balcana, which I had from Servian seed, it
proved a little weed like our own arvensis. Last, but
not least, comes the native Speedwell, dear attractive
thing, to be allowed its full way in the garden wherever
possible, and no more vigorous and easy than all its
vigorous, easy clan—excepting only such capricious uglies
as bellidioeides and alpina.

Arnica has been left behind by now, and the hillside is
one soaking sponge of bog. Here and there, on stalwart
spikes, rise the large lurid goblets of Gentiana purpurea,
huddled in a head, and ranging in colour through shades
of dull yellow, brown, and livid bronze. Then comes
something exquisite beyond all hope—something that
clothes the wettest moss of the slope in tenderest, softest,
warmest rose-purple. As we get nearer, straining our
hearts to be upon this unexpected delight, we gradually
discern its flowers to be borne in round, fluffy heads.
What it may be we have no notion. Now it is at our
feet; we plunge, lay violent hands upon it, possess it
eagerly, with fondlings. And it is a garlic! And it
stinks unutterably—and not all the multitudinous seas
can wash us clean of that clinging stench. As a matter
of fact, this is the common Chives of our kitchen-gardens,
Alliwm schoenoprason, native of wet highlands in our own
Lake Country no less than of the Alps, and, as another
matter of fact, a remarkably pretty thing, well worthy of
admission to any choice territory and marsh, were it not
for its unutterable odour. And here I will not deal
exhaustively with possible garlics for the rock-garden,
230 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

except to say that pretty, scentless, white neapolitanum
is hardy, that blue kansuense, rosy, big-flowered ostrow-
skyanum, pretty, pink pulchellum, wee hicrochunticum are
all attractive and often inoffensive ; common yellow Moly
is good for a rough, dryish bank, unworthy of choicer
stuff. Erdelii is a large, hideous novelty, with globes
of dullest grey-white; Schuberti is an immense, weird
creature, with huge, round, bomb-like heads/of pink, pro-
jecting more flowers on longer stems all over the ball, in
the wildest and most Struewel-Peter manner. T'rique-
trum, again, is pretty, of a dead, dull white, looking like
the ghost of a dead white bluebell, sodden in water.
This fills every vineyard in Liguria, and is a great rarity
in the neighbourhood of Bristol.

And so we shake off the malodorous memory of the
Garlics and go forward, topping the slope, and finding
ourselves at last in the upmost levels. Now the stream
flows gently, between banks that are clothed with the
rosy snow of Silene acaulis, so dense with flower that each
yard-wide plant seems a mere mat of colour. Silene
acaulis has a vast woody taproot, impossible of collection,
but comes well from seed, and grows well, too, in any
open, well-drained place on the rock-work. But in culti-
vation it never flowers with anything approaching its
proper generosity. Perhaps the moraine-garden may
cause it to wake up. LEascapa is a form differing only in
the fact that the flowers have minute stems instead of
sitting flat on the cushion, and sawvatilis, as far as I can see,
is indistinguishable. Silene rupestris is a pretty white-
flowered biennial for dryish places; Silene alpestris, de-
spite its name, is a bog-plant of the very highest rank,
loving any fairly moist corner, and running riot in a mass
of narrow, glossy leaves, sending up, on stems of about a
foot, abundant loose showers of white flowers, circular,
and delicately notched all round. It seeds, too, in pro-
THE MOUNTAIN BOG 231

fusion, and blooms far on into autumn—an altogether
indispensable delight. Silene pusilla is a most exquisite
thing, a miniature of rupestris, identical in all respects
but reduced to the most diminutive proportions. I doubt
if it has quite the robust constitution of its big sister ; in
any case it should have a very choice corner of the bog—
if only on account of its minute loveliness. Stlene sazxi-
Jraga is a spidery-growing rock-plant, interesting, but
not brilliant, with creamy flowers, brownish on the
outside.

Most brilliant of the race is Silene Elizabethae, from
hot moraine-slopes of Northern Italy, dwarf, sticky-
leaved, with immense flowers like those of a Clarkia,
which produce—at least they have produced with me—
abundance of sound and fertile seed. This plant loves
the moraine-garden, or a warm, well-drained slope in
light soil; as for the slugs, they adore it as an article of
diet. Stlene Pumilio is similar, but smaller—a difficult
thing, I have always found it, craving something which
I could not supply, though I have tried peat and granite
and silver sand and everything that seemed at all likely.
At last, however, some pot-plants in sharp, light loam
are thriving well. Silene virginica, from hot Virginia,
is gorgeous, with huge scarlet flowers, but I have no
hopes of ever succeeding with so miffy a Southerner ;
another tall Silene is Zawadskyii, which makes promising-
looking rosettes of glossy green foliage (like Primula
clusiana), and then sends up stems of dull, disappointing
flowers. Remains only Silene Schaftae, a useful dwarf
border-plant, with abundance of magenta-rose flowers
through late summer and autumn. Asterias is an annual,
so is compacta—big, brilliant things, greyish, glaucous-
leaved with spreading heads of big red flowers; beautiful
dwarf palaestina, with abundance of soft rosy flowers, is
painfully half-hardy. As a rule, to tell truth, all pink
232 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

Silenes, except palaestina, have too much chalk and
magenta in their tones ever to please me. My prime
favourite is the white-starred, dainty alpestris.
Meanwhile, as we mount by the stream, over ribbed
rocks, and gradually thinning herbage, the beauties of
the upmost levels throng thick. These are the very
axnpatot Necpoves of Hippolytos: purity is the dew that
waters them, and the high Gods walk here, for all who
choose to see. Against the grey stone shine in contrast
the gold-and-violet suns of Aster alpinus amid the silver
stars of Edelweiss. Like a dingy caricature of the Aster
appears Erigeron alpinus, and the grass is dotted with
the deep, brown-crimson spikelets of Nigritella angusti-
folia, delicious little Orchis, which is filled with the most
rich and penetrating fragrance of Vanilla. This, though
I have oft collected it, I have never been able, worse luck,
to get established. Down by the bed of the stream itself
are the children of the bog. Sazifraga acizocides and the
two Campanulas have been left far below, and their place
is filled by the blues of Gentiana bavarica; the lighter,
clearer colour of Myosotis rupicola ; the startling white-
ness, against glossy green, of Ranunculus alpestris, grow-
ing every minute more abundant; and the soft lilac of
Soldanella with the rosy pinks of Primula farinosa. All
these, of course, are for moist or marshy corners of your
bog, with the exception of Myosotis alpestris and its
variety, rupicola, which endure far heavier damp on the
well-drained Alps than ever they will in cultivation;
where, on the contrary, though alpestris is an easy border
plant, the much more lovely, delicate, and capricious
rupicola requires very perfect drainage and protection
from excessive moisture if you are to make it a sound
perennial. For the bog, however, you may, of course,
use cautiously our own brilliant native palustris, in some
of its newer improved varieties, which never look better
THE MOUNTAIN BOG 233

than when on the edge of water, or luxuriating in the
wettest bog. But cautiously, say I; for Myosotis palustris
is a rampant greedy grower, and pairs better with other
such stout creatures as Mimulus.

Of Primula and Ranunculus your bog may be proud.
All the Alpine Buttercups, alpestris, rutaefolius, ker-
nerianus, gelidus, glacialis, Traunfellneri, Seguieri,
crenatus, bilobus, will thank you for rich, deep, wet soil,
in which they will thrive like potatoes. Nothing is more
effective in a garden than a damp, stone-strewn tract all
dotted with the glossy little bushes and the big white-
and-gold cups of Ranunculus alpestris. Indeed, all these
high-Alpine Buttercups will thrive in almost any good
cool corner, provided their soil be heavy and their condi-
tions not too arid. Rarest and loveliest is a treasure from
the Austrian Alps, which I have only just succeeded in
procuring, after years of craving. This is Ranunculus
anemonoeides—the true anemonoeides, not the pretty
little Thalictrum anemonoeides with large white flowers
on short frail stems, which is sometimes confused with
the Ranunculus and offered in catalogues under the
auguster name. The Ranunculus inhabits much the same
wet shingles in the higher eastern ranges that delight
glacialis in the western moraines. It has clawed, divided,
fleshy leaves, glaucous and beautiful ; and immense flowers,
like those of a mountain Chrysanthemum, pearly white,
verging to a delicate sunset pink. From what I have
seen I make no doubt this wonderful beauty will prove as
easy as the rest of the group, and perhaps the finest of
them all.

I have already so far chanted the Litany of Primula
that I can add little to my song of their praise. But
first, in justice, I must pause to adore my novelties in the
race—abhorrent from bog-treatment though they be.
Now, while Auricula Golden Queen has huge obese round,
234 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

amber flowers, I have realised, this year, the superior
grace and beauty of two Auricula-forms, similis and
Obristii, with long trumpets of a lovely rich yellow. And
bellunensis is even richer in tone, of a yellow deepening
towards orange—magnificent ; then among Viscosas comes
the new apennina, a gem of gems, very rare and untried.
But this is a fine thriver, nobly floriferous, with round
heads, on dwarf stems, of very large, round, overlapping
flowers, gently pink, with a dim white eye—more beautiful
than even Cottia at its best. And then, again, I have
just flowered a new cousin of viscosa collected by a
neighbour, and quite the most gorgeous of its kind, con-
quering the finest Viscosas, Ciliatas, and Helveticas ; this is
a robust grower and very free, sending up stems of four or
six inches, crowned with a domed cluster of large flowers
—deep, dazzling purple, with a sharply defined white eye.
So far as I know, quite imperfectly, the tangled race of
Primula, this beauty has no name, and deserves a good one.

And now I will go on to say that rosea is the love-
liest thing for the bog that heart of man can desire,
growing in dense old tufts, with their feet in running
water—but it will do as well in damp ordinary soil—with
those matchless carmine flowers in very early summer.
Then comes pale snowy involucrata, sweet and holy little
plant, with glossy rounded leaves, and gracious upshoot-
ing stems, another glory of the bog or damp rock-work ;
Parryi, large, deep purple, splendid; Deorum, with
smaller but no less handsome flowers (my plants have
now taken to flowering freely—but in spring, not in late
summer, as their native habit is); japonica, stalwart and
coarse, best fitted for the copse and rough outlying
stretches; new, gorgeous little biennial cockburninana,
with flowers of ardent orange; Stuarti, if you can get it,
another giant species, with great heads of purple;
farinosa, of course, with its big brother longiflora, and
THE MOUNTAIN BOG 235

its wee brother, scotica—not to mention its other relatives,
magellanica, hakusanensis, algida; sikkimensis, tall and
royal, powdery-white, with swaying peals of sulphur-
yellow bells; and gluwtinosa with queer crowded little
bunches of blue-violet flowers, which it can only be in-
duced to put forth when grown in the mossiest, spongiest
bog. Finally there are the giants of the denticulata and
cashmeriana kinds — fat cabbages for outlying shady
banks, and the new pulverulenta form of japonica, with
its offspring, the flaming hybrid Unique, whose other
parent is cockburniana, and his constitution poor.

Then there are the North American cousins of Primula
—the Shooting Stars, which love rich, well-drained, damp
soil. Who the Twelve Gods may be, and what claim
they may have to Dodecatheon I cannot tell, but these
flowers of the Twelve Gods are gracious if not dazzling
creatures, large leaved, with tall stems that carry a head
of little purplish, gold-pointed flowers like small Cycla-
mens. Their colour is not very interesting, and their
growth a trifle gawky; Meadia is the largest, and has
better-coloured varieties; pauciflorum is quite the best
kind, a free seeder, smaller than Meadia and excellent for
the bog, a most attractive fair frail beauty.

But the rarest species of all—and indeed the only
Alpine species that the twelve undiscerning gods
possess, is Dodecatheon integrifolium. This, however, is
a rare, difficult little plant, an Alpine of Alpines, requir-
ing a very choice open space in the bog, with abundance
of stone chips and fine peaty humus. It only grows
three or four inches high, with three or four flowers in a
loose cluster at the top of the stem. The blossoms,
hardly smaller than those of great stout jeffreyanum and
Meadia, look very large for the minute daintiness of the
plant; and their colour, though running, like so many
tones in this race, towards a magenta-purple, yet have so
236 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

much depth and fire, so bright an orange at the flower’s
eye, that the little clustered cyclamens at the crown of
that frail stem have a strong charm—especially if you
collect this Dodecatheon in its native haunts. I came
upon it high in the Canadian Rockies, near the last limit
of herbage. All around the stones were triumphing over
the vegetation ; above, in a vast amphitheatre, were walls,
screes, escarpments of naked rock, falling, in terrific arid
precipices, or long slopes of débris, towards a green icy
lake a thousand feet lower down. And here, nodding
amid the rare, sickly grasses, waved the ardent, few-
flowered clusters of the Dodecatheon, and, as I gathered
up its roots, a striped squirrel—who must have been one
of the Twelve Gods in avatar—came and sat on a stone
and chittered angrily at me for removing his treasures.
But alas! in cultivation, I have never succeeded in doing
anything with Dodecatheon integrifolium, though one
would have thought my soil and climate sufficiently
Alpine, sufficiently reminiscent of its own.

Yet another large cousin of the Primulas there is,
which is good for a sheltered rich corner, not too select,
on the outskirts of the bog. This is Cortusa Matthioli,
whose variety grandiflora is better than the type and
better than the other species of Cortusa. 'These Cortusas
throw up each year large, bristly, soft green leaves, like
shaggy versions of the Wood-sanicle, or Primula sinensis,
and then, on a tall stem of about a foot, clusters of
pendent Primula stars, which are of a dark and brownish
red. They are interesting rather than brilliant, but are
well worthy of a place if you have room.
MORE OF THE SMALLER BOG-PLANTS 237

CHAPTER XII

Wore of the Smaller Bog-plants

In this long interval, while we have been pursuing our
stream without comment, we have mounted past the
limits of the grass, over a final tract of Ranunculus
pyrenaeus, and are wandering amid the soaking shingle,
where the river is born, and lies hidden at his source like
Iamos, in beds of blossom. And this is Ranunculus
gilacialis, whose snowy, great cups glitter everywhere
above the wet and glistening stones. Beyond there is
nothing more, except, perhaps, one golden flare, amid the
greyness, of Geum reptans. All around are Androsace
glacialis, Campanula cenisia, Viola cenisia, Gentiana
brachyphylla, Chysanthemum alpinum, Myosotis rupicola,
Papaver alpinum, Iberidella, Ranunculus alpestris, the
ugly little forms of Sawifraga varians, Saxifraga Andro-
sacea, and Sawifraga biflora. But of these only the
Saxifraga varieties, the Androsace, the Ranunculus and
the Chrysanthemum, inhabit the wettest places; and in
cultivation wet is fatal for both the Androsace and the
Saxifrage. Chrysanthemum alpinum is a pretty little
creature, though, and very fairly easy to establish in the
shingle of the bog or the moraine-garden. It has
camomilish leaves, quite bright and glossy green, with
impressive snow-white flowers, golden-eyed, and exactly
like those of its big cousin, Chysanthemum leucanthemum,
of every English hayfield, though a little smaller than the
238 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

Ox-eye, and carried on stems about three or four inches
from the ground. Lapponicum and nipponicum are very
close cousins, even if not actually brother-forms of the
same Alpine and high-Arctic species. Chrysanthemum
Zawadskyi is another bog-plant of easy culture—rather
taller than alpinum, rising to five or six inches, with
ferny foliage and stocky, stolid flowers, whose white
is tinged with soft pink. As for Chrysanthemum
Tchihatchewi, this must go far, far from the bog, a
ramping, ferny carpeter, making wide mats over the
driest, rubbliest places. Its beauty is its foliage, its
recommendation its violently robust habit, and its love
of hopeless, worthless, dry places where nothing else will
grow; its flowers, on five-inch stems, are rather small
dull daisies, white, with greenish-yellow eyes. Most
august of the family, of course, is Chrysanthemum
indicum, the parent of a priceless garden race; but
Chrysanthemum indicum has no other claim to a place,
for it is a tall, leafy, gawky weed, with heads of minute,
uninteresting flowers.

For the very choicest corners of the bog, in fine, damp
shingle, very rough and fiercely drained, should go some
of the marsh Saxifrages—our own rare Hirculus, in its
variety major; its Arctic cousin flagellaris—if you can
get hold of it; androsacea, if you think its small flowers
of dullish milk-white are worth the trouble. Steilaris is
so easy that you can put it in any very wet place; so is
rotundifolia from the woods below ; biflora, on the other
hand, lovely frail trailer with its great crimson-purple
flowers, this, although luxuriating in the wet grey
glacier-mud when at home, is more difficult to please
when out on a visit—alas! as a rule, not sojourning long
in one stay despite the best attention. It requires very
careful treatment in the cool, well-drained rock-work. As
for aeizoeides, this is quite a rampant grower, and may
SAXIFRAGA LINGULATA ON A ROCK IN THE OLD GARDEN.

 
MORE OF THE SMALLER BOG-PLANTS 239

be put in any marish place, not too choice. Cymbalaria,
brilliant little annual, thrives and seeds abundantly in
every dampish corner or flat, making, if you choose, a
dainty golden contrast with the pale pale purple cruci-
form stars of Ionopsidium acaule, similar in size, habit,
requirements, easiness, daintiness, and charm. These,
when established, will seed themselves independently from
year to year, and need no more care than the occasional
scattering of a little fresh seed. And, for dank rocks
near the bog or overhanging, you have Savifraga Geum,
umbrosa, mutata if you love beauty and _ curiosities ;
pennsylvanica, hieracifolia, and erosa if you desire coarse
and stalwart uglies. On dank, shady ledges, too, thrives
riotously one of the queenliest of all Saxifrages—my well-
beloved lingulata, with long, loose plumes of snow, which
I am now establishing in the cliff above the Lake at
Ingleborough, in places exactly similar to those damp
shelves, from which I collected profuse mats of it near
St. Martin Lantosque. The hypnoeides group, too, will
be happy on rocks in the neighbourhood of moisture, while
one of them, splendid aquatica, will prosper even in the
bog itself, though, being large and stout, it must be
cautiously introduced—and alas, that none of the Bur-
seriana group will tolerate the bog! Nevertheless, in
this section, I must pause again to congratulate myself
on some beautiful novelties. Who Paulina may have
been—unless it was Lollia of that ilk, who ran, so
disastrously for herself, against the Augusta Agrippina
in the great matrimonial stakes for the hand of the
Emperor Claudius—I have no notion. ‘No matter, no
matter, if I can get at her, I doubt if her mother will
know her again ’—so bitterly do I envy and grudge her
monopoly of a most rare, lovely little new Saxifrage,
which challenges Gloria, and extinguishes Boydi and even
beautiful Faldonside. Saxifraga Paulinae, from some-
240 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

where in Italy, is a thrifty, vigorous little plant, tufted,
spiny, silvery as Boydi, but evidently more vigorous and
solid. The flowers, too, are larger than those of Boydi,
freely borne, and of a pure, exquisite, lemon yellow. So
far Paulinae is very rare and very wee; when it has
grown larger I can foresee it will claim high royal rank
among its kin. Another novelty is pretty Petrarchae,
also an Italian—like rochelliana in flower, and like Boydi
in growth. Obristii has not flowered yet, nor has the
hybrid jaeggeana, but Obristii is clearly a cousin of
coriophylla. Corymbosa is simply luteo-viridis, dalmatica
is a twin to aretioeides, and beautiful Burnati is worthy
of his parents—aeizéon and cochlearis.

The sad tale of Gentiana bavarica has been told already ;
and the same sad tale lies against pyrenaica, imbricata,
and rare little pumila, with four cleft flowers of sombre
sapphire ; and there are but few Gentians that will help
to glorify the ordinary bog. Pneuwmonanthe will lift its
deep blue trumpets on stiff wiry stems in the heathier,
drier corners; arvernensis, being the same plant, but
magnified, will do likewise in the same conditions;
septemfida cordifolia, prostrate, with its clusters of
immense blue blossoms, will flop happily about on a
damp, well-drained ledge, in any light, rich soil; verna
and acaulis, in really dry and torrid districts, find their
only chance of life in the bog, though in nature, and with
me, in my Alpine air, they would both abhor it and refuse
to grow; and the glory of asclepiadea has received its
due place in the larger bog-garden.

Nor have the Gentians many relatives adapted for the
marsh; the one noticeable branch of cousins are the
Swertias. And these are poor relations indeed. The
essential splendour of the Gentians, of course, is their
blue; and the Swertias, on leafy stems about a foot
high, carry loose spikes of starry flowers which are of
MORE OF THE SMALLER BOG-PLANTS 241

the dullest speckled slate-colour imaginable. The type
of their whole race is the common Swertia perennis ; all
the others are hardly distinguishable, and the sole recom-
mendation of the family is the absolute ease with which
any and all of them will prosper in even the wettest parts
of the bog.

I know no Erythraea for the bog; those bright heads
of clear pink Gentians are specially adapted for em-
bellishing the bare, dry downs of southern England ;
culture, as a rule, they resent. Cicendia, or Gentiana,
pusilla I have collected in Swiss bogs, and vainly sought
on Dorset moors, following that ominous trail of Mrs.
Yeobright and ill-starred, tragic Eustacia. This Cicendia,
very delicate and frail, is hardly a plant for the garden,
if ever it could be induced to grow there. Nor are the
Campanulas of any great note for the choice, high-Alpine
bog. The moraine is their pet nursery; Scheuchzeri,
however, thrives in wet marsh, pusilla is tolerant, and our
own dainty little hederacea is the sweetest of bog-trailers,
with wee bells of pale blue on invisible, thread-like stems.
This, however, is hard to establish, and must, I think,
have tough, coarse grasses to ramble through and seek
cover in before it can be made truly and permanently
happy. Few things can be lovelier than the mixture of
this delicate, gentle azure, with the delicate, gentle flesh-
pink of Anagallis tenella, another wee native marsh-plant,
which by a happy touch of nature is often found with
the Campanula in wet places of the West. The Bog-
pimpernel, near cousin of the Primulas, is an absolutely
prostrate thing, creeping about with branches of glossy
little round green leaves arranged in pairs. In due time,
in summer, these are hidden from sight by a profusion of
stemless flowers, large, starry, of an exquisite shade of
pale rose. I have seen the Anagallis on Surrey heaths ;
I have seen it on a wet rock in the Lakes, where Ruskin

Q
242 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

used to go and worship it; and never does the almost
exotic charm of the plant evaporate; it is so profuse and
so lovable in blossom that one can hardly, somehow,
believe a thing thus richly dainty to be a native of our
well-trodden, humdrum land. And, with the blue of
Campanula hederacea, the Pimpernel becomes loveliness
made more lovely. Nature, when she turns her mind to
the matter, is indeed a cunning artist, and arranges many
a picture of bewildering beauty. Have you ever seen the
orange of Arnica blending, on a high, rough mountain-
side, with the violet daisies of Aster alpinus and the great
shaggy bells of Campanula barbata, soft and pale in their
delicate china-blue? Or the violent sapphire of Gentiana
bavarica grading with the gentle azure of Myosotis rupi-
cola against the ardent matted rose of Androsace glacialis,
with the snow-and-gold of Ranunculus alpestris to com-
plete the harmony? Or, for a subtler effect, a meadow
crowded. with the celestial stars of Gentiana verna, amid
the innumerable lilacs, mauves, purples, tyrian darknesses
of a hundred million mountain pansies ?

The most subtle picture, though, that I ever saw, lies
far back in my memory of the Alps. I was descend-
ing through a golden sunset, from Beatenberg to
noisome, clamorous Interlaken. The evening was clear,
calm, and radiant; the town lay very far below us,
unseen, unguessed, unguessable amid the benign tran-
quillity of the hills. And suddenly we came out into
a marshy clearing of the woodland, falling away steeply
down towards the sunset. And the whole slope, against
the fiery light of the West, was thick with the soft rose
of Primula farinosa, abundant as sands of the sea, and
among it everywhere stood the livid, purple spikes of
Bartsia alpina, incandescent and amethystine in the red
glow. Now the Alpine Bartsia, with dull, labiate flowers,
is coloured, bracts and leaves and all, with a most
MORE OF THE SMALLER BOG-PLANTS 243

wonderful sad deep shade of plum-colour, which, by
itself, is haunting and subtle enough in all conscience,
without any sickliness or indefiniteness of tone. But
the colour of the Primula, rich and dainty pink, is of
precisely the shade to fulfil and double the attraction of
the other. And the two plants together in mass form a
picture more perfectly satisfying, I verily believe, than
any other floral harmony that I have ever seen—except
perhaps that of delicate, butter-coloured Tulipa Batalini
among the lavender stars of Anemone robinsoniana.
Bartsia alpina is a rare native of our northern mountain-
bogs; you will meet it here and there in Westmoreland,
round Malham Cove, and in all the streamlets of Upper
Teesdale ; I have never found it easy to establish, and
have, at times, suspected it of some morbid tendency in
the matter of its root-system, so delusively simple is it to
collect and plant. Anyhow, for the bog-garden, it isa
case like Mrs. Allen’s vain longing for acquaintance—
‘ Despair of nothing that we would attain’; and, may I
add, ‘ Unwearied diligence our point will gain.’ But I
think I had better say ‘ may,’ with all due respect to the
Divine Jane, and the edifying unknown authority—was
it a copy-book ?—from which she quotes.

Besides Anagallis and Bartsia, our own marshes give
us some Galnable things. For the common bog-Asphodel,
Narthecium ossifragum—the ‘ Bone-breaker,’ because its
glow deludes you into sloughs where you break your legs
—with its sturdy stout spikes of golden yellow, and its
little swordlike growths of leafage, like a wee Iris, is good
and very easy for any rougher corner in damp, heathy
soil, Very much smaller, choicer, and less brilliant is
Tofieldia palustris, a rarity which, like so many other
rarities in England, makes one in the aristocratic band
that turns Upper Teesdale into the Almack’s of British
plant-life. Tofieldia is like Nartheciwm in growth, but
244 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

very much daintier, with only one or two growths, and
a fluffy little spire of small pale-yellow flowers. Canali-
culata, from the Alps, is rather bigger, and both are
interesting for the bog, to combine with the rather
similar pink and white spikes of their compatriot, Poly-
gonum viviparum. As for our rare bog-Orchids, Liparis
and Malazis, let no one, I would urge, attempt them, or
nurse hope of growing them. Dull little greenish things,
they are no great loss; but the same sad advice applies
to three royally beautiful marsh-Orchids from North
America—Pogonia, Calopogon, and Arethusa—plants of
the spongiest, wettest peat-bog, loving to grow in
cushions of the living Sphagnum, like the Cranberry.
The Cranberry itself, with flowers like wee crimson
Cyclamens on thread-like stems, is very pretty and
harmless for the bog; Andromeda polifolia is larger,
with rosy bells of blossom, and no less easy.

Then there are our own native Pinguiculas, vulgaris,
and the very rare white-flowered alpina, for the same
facile culture as I have already described for grandifiora.
But lusitanica and bizarre vallisneriaefolia are too diffi-
cult for any ordinary garden. Stsyrinchium anceps is
an attractive little plant, native to one patch of ground
in western Ireland, and delightfully free and happy in
the bog —a small bulbous thing, cousin to all the
Amaryllids, with grassy foliage, and big stars of bright-
blue that break from the rush-like stems. This delights
in wet ground, and seeds itself freely without effort; and
altogether is a treasure. Even more glorious is the
similar, larger bellum, for much the same, or drier
treatment; and most glorious of all is grandiflorum from
British Columbia, rush-like and very fine in growth, with
thready, waving stems that break out in February and
early March into immense wide pendent bells of an
ardent silky sheen of violet. This lovely, lovely thing is
MORE OF THE SMALLER BOG-PLANTS 245

perfectly comfortable in the garden, if only you give it
a select corner in light peaty soil, in a position, for
precaution’s sake, where spring winds and rains may not
too violently assault the delicate fabric of the flower.
Sisyrinchium striatum, to warn my readers, is totally
different ; in growth big and coarse, like a German Iris,
with crowded spikes of stupid little straw - coloured
blooms. This likes an ordinary dryish border—and doesn’t
deserve it. Not unlike Sisyrinchiwm anceps, again, is
the Blue Rush of Provence. Aphyllanthes monspeliensis
is true to the name, forming a rushy tuft, indistinguishable
from a Juncus, and then erupting into big open cups of
soft clear blue. This delight, however, is not a bog-
plant. You will find it in the woods between Cannes
and Grasse; in cultivation it likes a warm, sheltered
corner in rich sandy peat, where it grows more beautiful
every year.

To return to our native bog-plants; the Sundews, all
very much alike, and all, therefore, to be treated of under
Drosera rotundifolia, are pretty and interesting, though
not brilliant. Evil little things they are, with their
carnivorous habit. One wonders what crime the past
lives of Drosera can have held, that now the race should
be compelled to dree so ominous and unpleasant a weird
of murder and fraud. When will the Sundews be free of
the burden, through some self-sacrificing individual plant
who shall starve to death rather than take life, and so
redeem his race into the happier paths of peace and
virtue? Not to pursue such high inquiries beyond what
is fitting, I will merely add that the Sundews are not
hard to establish in wet moss, and that their flower-spikes
always promise much more than they perform, only one
or two blooms opening at a time on the uncurling
crozier, and never producing any fine unanimous effect of
blossom. ‘The exotic Droseras, such as beautiful, rosy-
246 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

flowered filiformis, are too frail and delicate to prosper
long in the rough and tumble of the garden.

Sedum villosum 1 have already mentioned. This is
a dear pretty little creature, which nobody seems to
know or to grow. It is, I expect, of biennial tendency,
but seeds happily, and is charming for damp soil or
rock in the bog-garden, a frail wee grower, making
one or two spikes of fat little leaves, about two or
three inches high, crowned, in June, with big Catherine-
wheel flowers of a soft waxy pale pink. The common
Grass of Parnassus every one knows, on the contrary.
Does every one grow it? I, for my part, have always
found it less easy and more capricious than its much
more beautiful brother, Parnassia fimbriata, which I
collected years ago in the Rockies. This, though it
thrives most robustly in rich damp soil, is able to thrive
robustly almost everywhere ; a better-tempered plant was
never imported. It has taller stems than palustris, a
much freer habit, larger, crowded clumps, and larger
white flowers, with the eponymous fringe of fine white
hairs between each petal at their base. The other
Parnassias are almost identical with fimbriata and palus-
tris, and therefore less worthy of culture than the supreme
jimbriata; there is one, however, nubicola, I think, or
perhaps caroliniana, which affects yellow or a yellowish
shade for its flowers. This I have grown, failed with,
and forgotten. I cannot have had much pleasure
from it.

Of ferns and grasses our own woods and fells give us
one or two valuable plants for the bog. Near by must
be the Beech-fern, on a high bank of light, rich, rotten
soil. And infinitely more beautiful than Polypodiwm
phegopteris, with the rather arid dusty green of its fronds,
Polypodium dryopteris must certainly claim our worship.
Than the rich brilliant emerald of the Oak-fern’s fronds,
MORE OF THE SMALLER BOG-PLANTS 247

both young and mature, the garden holds no verdure
more startling in its clean radiance of tone. And the
outline of the fronds, plumed and opulently-lobed, on
invisible, dark stems, is no less lovely than their colour.
The Oak-fern, abundant in the Alpine woods, is to be
found with us in the North as a rarity, but abundant
where it occurs, jewelling some high damp bank of moss
and rottenness with the refulgent green of its plumes.
In cultivation it is very easy to establish in luxuriance in
any rich, cool corner of the rock-work or slope of the
bog, where sun will not parch it, nor winds wreak havoc
among its brittle stalks. With me, indeed, in a cool
Alpine district, it grows rampageously even in the open,
exposed to the utmost ferocity of our pale northern sun ;
but in hotter, dryer places it will certainly be the better
of moisture and shade and shelter. The third of our
Polypodies, calcareum, a rare plant from the stony screes
under Ingleborough, is only for dry torrid banks of loose
stone, through which it loves to run. Its fronds have the
dusty tone of phegopteris, and in design, while finer than
the Beech, have not the rich loveliness of the Oak. It
requires full sun and exposure. Last of damp-loving
little ferns comes Cystopteris montana, never to be
overpraised, which I have collected in the Alps, and
which occurs rarely as a high-Alpine in Scotland. This is
found in the dampest places under shady rocks, a most
attractive thing, quite unlike fragilis and alpina, with
broadly triangular fronds of very fine lacy foliage. This
I find, is of the happiest, easiest culture in any rich, cool,
shady corner.

Of the Filmy Ferns, T'richomanes and Hymenophyllum,
the less said the better; they are as nearly impossible as
any plants can be; the Maiden-hair is not for every one,
but in damp, westerly climates may easily be made a
denizen, if not a weed, of dark moist corners and caverns
248 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

in the rock-work. Lastraea thelypteris is a larger, rather
uninteresting fern for the bog ; Lastraea oreopteris is stiff
and stark in its upright growth, from open, heathy banks
on the fells. Lastraea rigida, if one could get it,
has the attraction of extreme rarity, and still lurks
undiscovered among the common Lady - ferns on the
upper slopes of Ingleborough, whence it was first
recorded. On the same slope occurs the Parsley Fern—a
mere caricature of itself as it luxuriates on the slates and
primary formations of the Welsh mountains. But
though I have seen Allosorus crispus making stout bushes
by the stream-sides that flow down to Llyn Idwal, I have
had so uniformly disheartening an experience with this
fern on my limy soil, that I will not give it any recom-
mendation for the bog.

Finally comes the one grass that is really of prime
value for the rock-garden and the bog (not mentioning
Festuca varia, beautiful neat cushion of finest emerald
fur, even in midwinter). Poa alpina is indistinguishable
in growth from the tufts of any common grass that one
rends up as a weed. But in its viviparous form the plant
produces rich heavy masses of living baby plants, the
whole blossom-head being a great tassel of plumy emerald
touched with crimson. Beneath their load the frail stems
bend earthward, and there in due time deposit their load,
each sprouting bulblet producing a young plant. Poa
alpina vivipara is quite common in the Alps, and occurs
very rarely in the Highlands and in western Ireland—
notably on one mountain overhanging the sea. In
cultivation it is perfectly easy and robust, thriving in any
rich, damp loam. Its only drawback is its very close
resemblance, while out of flower, to its common cousins,
which often causes Poa alpina to be weeded up, while the
real weed next door is left untouched.

In dry clefts of every wall in the Ligurian vineyards
MORE OF THE SMALLER BOG-PLANTS 249

lives a small Aroid, with arrow-shaped leaves of glossy
green, and queer little chocolate blossoms, whose hood
prolongs itself into an immense feeler. The whole effect
of the flower is that of a mouse, with waving tail, diving
down some hole. Indeed the resemblance of Arisarum
proboscideum to the agitated hinder-end of an escaping
mouse is almost ridiculous. But this little plant, native
of such arid dry corners in so arid and dry a country,
must needs be of the most difficult culture in a moist cool
climate like mine? Will it be believed that by one of
Nature’s incalculable freaks, Arisarwm proboscideum is
not only one of the best plants I know, but grows quite
beside itself in the most sopping parts of the bog;
forming into great mats and beds of emerald arrows,
among which the diving brown mice frisk and sport in
the most exciting manner, waving their tails in every
direction. And though not showy, this freakish little
weird plant stands very high in my affections, not only
for its rare quaintness, as for its unparalleled, unhoped-for
adaptability. I have it everywhere now, in a hundred
wet, damp, or dry, shady corners, always in rich soil, and
in every exposure. And always it does best of all in full
sun in the wettest marsh, though hardly less glossy and
triumphant on the rock-work under the shadow of great
boulders, in stiff retentive ground.

Of the other Aroids I have little to say. Arisarum
triphyllum from Japan will be handsome when I have
succeeded in establishing it on good shady corners of the
rock. It grows a foot high or more, with one or two
very graceful three-cleft, claw-like leaves, and a long-
tailed flower like an exaggerated Arisarum. Larger still
is Arum crinitum, my only Arum,a magnificent foliage
plant for a very hot sheltered place in dry rich soil,
growing four feet high and more in a dense clump, and
emitting, in early summer, enormous flowers of a dense
250 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

brown-purple, whose odour is so appalling that during their
reign the garden is entirely unapproachable. Similar in
name, Asarum now recalls itself to me; a low-growing
race, forming mats of small, rounded, glossy leaves, with
small brown bells of blossom huddling round the root.
As may be imagined, the beauty of Asarwm lies in its
foliage; in Steboldi the leaves are variegated and marbled
in more than thirty varieties considered worthy of names
by their Japanese admirers. This, with our own native,
europacum, is useful, if not startling, for a cool, out of the
way, shady corner in the bog, or near it, but not prominent
or choice.

Notable among minute shrubs for the peaty bog are
Kalmia alpina, Rubus pedatus, Rubus arcticus, Cornus
canadensis. But all these must have a drier corner. The
glorious blue showers too of Mertensia elongata seem to
be produced as freely and happily in the wet bog as
anywhere else in the garden, so delightfully accommodating
is this most blessed of introductions. Virginica requires
more care, and a selecter, warmer spot, not near the small
things; primuloeides would seem to be a bog-plant from
very great elevations, but must still go from my pages
with the verdict non-proven.

A pretty common annual, which looks after itself in
cool shady places, not too choice, is Claytonia perfoliata,
which, with its twin virginica, has almost established
itself with us as a native. It has glossy, waxy rounded
leaves, and delicate loose spikes of pearly stars. But all
Americans are not so accommodating as this. Who is
there that has not wailed over Viola pedata? Now Viola
pedata is one of the loveliest little plants that has ever
timidly set root in our gardens—a small Violet, with
claw-like, ferny leaves, resembling those of some choice
Pieris, though of a greyish, leathery green. The large
flowers are beautifully built and balanced, very freely
MORE OF THE SMALLER BOG-PLANTS 251

borne, of a gentle clear lavender in the type-form, with
featherings and splashings of purple in the basal segments.
In the variety bicolor, more advertised, though hardly
more beautiful, all the lower part of the flower is of a
dense, velvety, tyrian purple. But Viola pedata is a
perennial grief to the gardener. Its invariable habit is to
dwindle away. Truth to tell, it is only a mimp—though
the loveliest mimp imaginable. All you can do is to give
it very perfect, sharp drainage, in some very choice elevated
corner of the bog-garden, in very light, nutritious soil.
Even then there is no great hope of permanence. Asa
consolation in misfortune, I may mention that Viola
pedata is one of the many plants that have undoubtedly
a strange unaccountable intractability even in their own
native country. In America, in the districts where it is
commonest, where it grows by the thousand in open sandy
places, gardeners who carefully transplant it to an exactly
similar place in their own gardens not a hundred yards
away find that it inevitably pines and dies in cultivation.

For our bog-garden—for dank shady rocks in its
neighbourhood, rather—most desirable and most dainty,
is another Viola of very different temper, the little twin-
flowered, golden-yellow Violet that you find luxuriating
in damp, cool, stony places all Switzerland over, from the
depths of the pine forest, to the stony barrens near the
summit of the Gemmi. With shade of rock, rich, damp
soil, you cannot go wrong with Viola biflora, the gem and
pride of stony steps and hollows in the garden, though
slugs and mice, I admit, annoy it as distractingly as its
big cousin calcarata.

For wetter places of the bog you may perhaps use,
very cautiously, in out of the way corners, our natives,
Viola palustris and the rare stagnina variety of the
common Dog-Violet. Viola stagnina is a dwarf form of
canina, with large, creamy white flowers, and occurs
252 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

infrequently in the rough, marshy meadows rising up to
the high moors opposite Ingleborough. In cultivation
one has to be very careful lest it show the coarse habit
and the plebeian greed of the Dog-Violet.

To deal completely now with the race. I will own
that for dry places in the garden I think no Violet (as
distinct from Pansy-violas) beats our native hirta at its
best—a stalwart clump, producing an extraordinary
abundance of contemporary blossoms, very large, scent-
less, and of a rich clear blue. I do not think the leafy
American cucullata approaches this, nor stricta, Rydbergi,
Sorora, nor any other of the fancy Violets that my man-
ager so piously cherishes. ‘To my taste these are all
weeds, variant on canina. Sorora has big blue flowers
and a good deal of leafage; the same applies to Rydbergi
and cucullata ; striata is rank and very leafy, with abun-
dance of small creamy-white flowers; and the blue
Violets all have white varieties—except hirta, so far as I
know. This almost certainly has one too, only nobody
has troubled to discover it. The best I can find to say
for these coarse rampageous Violets is that they will
thrive anywhere and make unobtrusive masses in any cool,
good soil. Hirta, on the other hand, is tidy and neat in
growth, sparing of leaves, and loves well-drained, rather
dry positions, in woodland or open ground.

The last Violet I have to mention I call upon with
lamentation. I have never been able to get hold of it,
for all the enthusiasm it aroused in me. It was in the
wood above the Temple-Tomb of Iyesyasu Tokugawa at
Nikko. Between the vast columnar trunks of those
secular Cryptomerias the setting sun cast arrows of gold
on the dappled green carpet of herbage round their feet.
The trees themselves were fired to ruddy sanguine,
great scarlet pillars of a huge cathedral. And here and
there on the ground there shone a wonderful Violet, fired
MORE OF THE SMALLER BOG-PLANTS 253

by the sunset to a blazing amethyst. It had the size,
growth, and habit of dainty pedata, the same finely cleft
foliage; its flower was large and stately, of a vivid
lavender. And there, amid the budding lilies and the
splashed gold and green of the vegetation that covered
the bare earth, the Violet glowed fierce in the red light.
And there, for all I know, it still glows. I cannot
obtain it. I get seed of all Japanese Violets I can hear
of, but not one of them ever turns out to be the Nikko
Violet of my heart—not even the most likely-sounding
ones, delphinifolia, gryptoceras, japonica. At least my
seed of gryptoceras never geminated at all, so that, by the
irony of life, I conclude that gryptoceras was very pro-
bably the Violet I wanted."

As for the two gorgeous new Violas, gracilis and hetero-
phylla, these are of the wild pansy cousinhood, loving
high grassy mountain-sides. Fine-leaved gracilis hails
from Greece, and has the most intensely purple flowers I
know anywhere. Heterophylla is only less brilliant, and
both thrive and multiply like bedding Pansies. And that
quaint, most rare of oddities, tufted, mat-like Viola arbor-
escens from Les Baumelles, is a cushion-violet, to be grown
on hot, rubbly banks, if you can get hold of it—which
you probably can’t.

I have been very happy and successful with a quaint-
ness for the Canadian Rockies, which I collected in wet
spongy places of the woodland bog, and now have grow-
ing and seeding all over the shady side of my rock-work,
swollen almost beyond recognition. Mitella pentandra
sends up a few palmate, handsome little leaves, and then,
in normal circumstances, a four-inch slender stem, carry-

1 No: at the very last moment before going to press, I have dis-
covered the Violet of my long quest. Itis VY. pimmata: variety, chaero-
phylloeides—tival, and probably conqueror, of all others. If pedata is
Margaret of Angoulesme, surely J¢znata must be Christine of Denmark
and Milan,
254 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

ing perhaps half a dozen flowers. These flowers are
round, greenish, small, and quite dull until you look into
them. And then you see that the circular bloom is
deeply cut and fringed all round its edge, into the finest
delicate lace-work imaginable. There is nothing solid,
in fact, about the blossom, it is all a fringe to the central
mass where the organs live. In cultivation it thrives
profusely, grows more than a foot high, carries more
than a dozen flowers, makes a conspicuous solid tuft of
leaves, and sows itself copiously all over the place. Of
inconspicuous beauties this is the keenest and quaintest
that I know. More obvious than this is a valuable marsh-
plant, Calla palustris, a rampant, running miniature of
the common false Arum, Calla ethiopica. This riots about
over marsh and mud-flat, asking nothing but stern repres-
sion, and eating you out of house and home in no time.

In dryer corners, under bigger things, you will, of
course, have a welcome for Sanguinaria canadensis, with
its round-lobed leaves, glaucous blue and bronze, and
its snowy flowers like Ranunculus anemonoeides,—or
perhaps it would be shorter to say ‘like an Anemone’
straight out. This is never a nuisance and always a joy.
One only wishes it would increase quicker, so joyous are
its foliage and white stars in early summer, in cool places
or under deciduous trees. I have it in colonies, both
canadensis and its improved major form—under my
group of Magnolias, Kobus, Watsoni, stellata, and salici-
folia, Then there are the Poppyworts and Jeffersonias,
—coarse things, though brilliant, and reminiscent of the
ordinary common Chelidoniwm, trebled in size. More
beautiful is the rare Eomecon chionantha, from mid-
China. But this exotic white Poppy for choice places,
rich and warm, is not of unquestioned hardiness, and I
have never been able to make a permanent success
of it.
‘AVIIVLYN VIGNOWYY

 
MORE OF THE SMALLER BOG-PLANTS 255

The Cardamines, again, the big Cuckoo-pints, are
handsome if large and stout—for a damp out of the way
place beyond the bog, where larger things have sway.
Bulbifera has fine fern-like foliage and loose spikes of large
pale purple cruciform flowers; enneaphylla is more
brilliant ; digitata is very free-growing and weed-like,
recalling an exaggerated Lady’s smock; and the double
form of this, Cardamine pratensis, itself, is quite a
pretty little creature, choicer than the others, free-
growing in any decent place, and coming not only abun-
dantly but faithfully from seed. But over nearly all
Crucifers lies the trail of the weed or the coarse vege-
table; the giant cabbage Crambe cordifolia, eight feet
across the vast mass of its rounded leaves, and send-
ing up to ten feet or more the snow-white fountain
of its innumerable little blossoms, is the glory of this
ugly race at one end of the scale, a fine, easy plant
for some very high point, in any good rich soil. At
the other end are the delightful miniatures, Morisia,
Iberidella, Petrocallis. And not unworthy of being
associated with these is the charming Cardamine tri-
folia, most choice for a cool shady place under the rock ;
forming a neat mass of very dark green leaves triply
divided and about three inches from the ground. From
this sombre carpet rise many six-inch spikes of large
flowers, brilliantly white, and arranged daintily upon
their stems. In earliest summer this plant lights up its
corner with a clear gleam recalling the fierce white light
that beats upon a throne.

Parochaetus communis is a Himalyan, a strange ramp-
ing trailer, that by general ageement, thrives best with
damp treatment. In appearance its long, prostrate
shoots are exactly like those of some clover, but the big
blossoms are borne by themselves on long pedicels, and
are pea-flowers of a rich and faultless azure. This lovely
256 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

thing is, when suited, a tremendous invasive grower, and,
personally, I believe its hardiness to be beyond question.
But occasionally in bad winters and unpropitious places,
it shows signs of a rickety constitution, violently as it
grows, when it chooses. And therefore it will be as well,
when in doubt, to give it a careful sheltered bank, very
well-drained, where cold winter damps cannot lodge,
and where the soil is light and good, exposed to full sun,
yet safe from blasts and rigours. Yet remember, if you
give Parochaetus these advantages you will have to reckon
with the certainty of his eating you out of house and
home in half a season. Therefore let nothing else of
choice be planted in that select sheltered corner—except
Tulips, perhaps, and other precious bulbs. Never mind
if, at first planting, your infant Parochaetus looks a mere
spot of green on an acre of bare earth. In a month the
Blue Himalyan Pea will have covered all his space, and
probably a great deal more as well.

As for Potentilla Comarum, this native Potentilla, inter-
esting and curious, can only be admitted to the roughest,
rankest of wet places. It is never very effective—a
rampant low spreading thing, with big flowers of a dingy
chocolate. Nor have I very much love for Chrysobactron
Hookeri, a smallish yellow Asphodel of about eighteen
inches, which thrives in cool wet corners of the bog.
Though bright and pretty, it is not a very distinguished-
looking plant. Far otherwise is it with the Bog-bean,
best-beloved native of our marshes—bean-like in foliage,
spreading its creeping branches abroad with unrelenting
speed, and sending up countless spikes of its big cup-
shaped flowers, all shaggy with pink and white fur, over-
flowing with a foam of snow and cream. For shallow
water, or a broad muddy expanse, nothing could be finer.
But this is a true ramper, almost indestructible. I made
a bed for Rhododendrons once, took out the soil for three
MORE OF THE SMALLER BOG-PLANTS 257

feet, and put at the bottom a lot of garbage, including a
quantity of superfluous Menyanthes, weeded from the
lake. Through three feet of ordinary dry soil those
mutilated sprays ran up to the level of the upper air,
and have continued to flourish ever since—though I
admit they never flower.

Though AMenyanthes is not common in this country, I
often find it, curiously enough, growing desperately
among the rough grass in high moorland bogs, where it
throws a few tentative leaves from year to year, but can
no more flower than Convallaria maialis in the crevices
of the denuded stone-flats above. Probably, as there was
once more copse for the Convailaria, so there was once
much more water for the Menyanthes, which was thus
able in old days, before the draining of the land, to climb
higher and prosper with greater freedom. Now its low-
land haunts have almost all been cultivated out of exist-
ence, and it only lingers in these difficult inauspicious
spots high up on the mountains.

Of tiny, tiny things for the bog-garden I will now
mention three of commanding merit. The first is
Myosotis Rehsteineri, if that be its correct name—a wee
Forget-me-not, spreading along the damp rich ground,
with smooth bright green leaves, and spikes of azure
blossom about two inches high. This, however—I do not
know whence it hails,—is not of absolutely trustworthy
constitution, and must be carefully looked after if it is not
to get crowded out and worsted in the battle with fellow-
plants, winds and weather. The next is Mentha Requienii,
a little Mint from Corsica so microscopic as to be hardly
larger than a lichen. ‘This little plant grows into
spreading invisible mats over any damp soil, and you
spend your life in utter ignorance of its existence, until
one day you tread heedlessly over what seems ordinary
naked earth, and are instantly assailed by the intense

R
258 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

pungent protests of bruised mint, filling the air for yards
with its fierce fragrance. Mentha Requienii hails from
Corsica, and so might well be rather tender. However,
after the hardest winter you are pretty sure, next
summer, to come on new patches and tracts of the little
Mint, smallest of its kind—smallest flowering plant in
cultivation. The last is a Novelty,—always to be men-
tioned with an Honorific capital, though it isn’t a
bog-plant, and though I don’t know its provenance, nor
the explanation of its jaw-breaking name. Helriné
Soleiroli has only just come into cultivation, and bids fair
(Nertera, the fruiting Duckweed, so like a scarlet-berried
Lemna, being half-hardy, as also is Mitchella) to be the
most important carpeter in the garden, almost beating
Arenaria balearica out of the field. Helxiné grows
as quick as a dream or a fungus—developing into a dense
sheet of verdure like a wee Ficus, with round leaves in
pairs. It grows with equal frenzy in good soil or none
at all, on bare rock or rich slope, in blazing sun or dense
shade. In summer it breaks out into blossom—into a
profusion of microscopic flowers that give the whole
plant the effect of being powdered with gold dust. As a
final recommendation, every shoot and fragment of the
plant will strike root and grow, no matter how small, no
matter where, nor how recklessly, inserted. Perhaps it is
not everywhere, nor invariably, to be trusted in winter,
but in all except very unfavourable corners I believe it
perfectly safe; and anyhow, one reserved pot will give
you a myriad new plants for next season.
THE WATER-GARDEN 259

CHAPTER XIII
Che Water-Garden

Apvicr to those about to build a Water-garden—DON’T.
Not that the Water-garden is not a joy and a glory; but
that it is cruelly hard to keep in order and control unless
you are master of millions and of broad ample acres of
pool and pond. Water, like fire, is a good servant,
perhaps, but is painfully liable to develop into a master.
As Webster’s Flaminio says of women, water, to the
gardener, ‘is either a god or a wolf. How many little
ponds are unguardedly built, only to become mere basins
of slime and duckweed? How many larger pools are
made, only to fill with Chara, Potamogeton, and the other
noxious growths that make its depths a clogged, waving
forest of dull brown vendure? The fact is, a pool—not
an easy thing to build and set going—is of all things in
the garden the hardest of all to keep in decent order.
Some of its choice inmates devour and despoil the smaller
ones ; water-weeds increase and multiply at a prodigious
rate ; dead leaves drift thick upon it in autumn, slime
and green horrors make a film across it in summer.
Contrast with this grim picture the water-garden as it
glisters before the sanguine eye of him who contemplates
possessing one—that crystal expanse, starred with goblets
of Nymphaea, those neat yet luxuriant shores aglow
with every glorious plant of the marsh. But the ideal
water-garden I need not draw from my own words.
The ideal water-garden has been described, once and for
260 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

all, in the Parable that tells how Brahmadatta the King
made and adorned a marvellous lake to allure the Most
Perfect One, Our Lord Buddha. You will find the tale
in the Swan-Birth Story of the Blessed One.

For in those far days of which no history preserves a
hint, the Bodhisatta-Soul was incarnate in a white swan,
of beauty, strength, and holiness incomparable, ruler of
many hundred thousand swans that all dwelt upon a lake
of surpassing loveliness, remote from man. So there they
faithfully obeyed his sway, and that of his General in
Chief, Sumukha, hardly less refulgent in purity than the
Swan-King himself. Now, in the latter years, that then
lay as many ages down the future as now they lie behind
us in the sacred past, Sumukha the white was to be the
well-beloved Ananda, standing for ever at the right hand
of Our Lord Himself. And still, in their humbler stages,
Bodhisatta and Ananda moved forward side by side, pre-
eminent over all their kind in wisdom and virtue. But
Brahmadatta, that reigned in Benares, heard of this
great swan host, and conceived a strong desire to behold
it, and, above all, to capture the snowy King and his
chief friend, the general of that winged army. So Brah-
madatta, on advice, set himself to create a lake yet more
perfectly beautiful than their own, that so the swans
might be lured into the clutches of the King. Not too
near his park and palace he built it—‘ a matchless basin
of pure water, adorned with innumerable water-plants,
enriched with lilies and lotuses in a hundred different
kinds. Flowery trees, bright with their quivering sprays,
surrounded its shore, as if they had taken possession of
the place in order to enjoy contemplation of that water;
swarms of bees, as if attracted by the smiling lotuses that
lay rocking on its gently trembling ripples, hovered and
roamed across its surface. Here its beauty was enhanced
by different groups of water-lilies, sleepless under the
THE WATER-GARDEN 261

tender touch of the moonbeams, which made them like
patches of white moonshine a-gleam through dark foliage.
And here again, in places, the pollen of lotus and water-
lily, wafted by the dainty fingering of the ripples, em-
broidered the shore as if with fine lace of gold. And
in yet other places, where it was carpeted with filaments
and lapsed petals of lotus and lily, the water had a wide
splendour, like a gift of homage and glorification. Yet
another beauty was due to its limpid tranquillity, so trans-
parent as to show each line and scale and curve of the in-
numerable fishes, whose flashing movement were no less
plain to view than if they had been wheeling silvery through
clear sky. And here the elephants, coming to dip their
trunks, blew forth cascades of spray that glittered like
loosened strings of pearl. And all the lake was so
brilliant that it was the very mirror of the stars, daughters
of our Lady Moon. Gay birds abounded there, and their
warbling resounded across the water.’

Thus was the lake constructed by Brahmadatta the
King for the allurement of all birds that fly; and he
ordered then a proclamation of safety, and pronounced
that the lake, with all its lilies and all its lotuses, was
the gift of King Brahmadatta to the birds, that they
might come and dwell in safety there.

And so his wicked scheme came to success one day,
‘when autumn had drawn away the curtain of dark
cloud, and had scattered its beautiful gifts abroad,
widening infinitely the clear purity of the horizon; the
lakes were glorious to behold, with their translucent
water, and the crowded lilies opening in fullest brilliancy.
It was in the time when our Lady Moon, flashing rays
of doubled glory, reaches the highest pitch of loveliness
and youth; {when earth, robed in the splendour of
innumerable harvests, offers her richest beauty.’

Thus begins this simple pious old parable, which, like
262 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

all the stories in the Birth-Garland of Our Lord Buddha,
preaches superhuman perfections of charity and self-
denial through a hundred imagined incidents in the by-
gone births and deaths of The Utterly Perfect One,
claiming no authority, of course, as history or dogma,
but, like the Gospel parables, making exorbitant
demands on poor mortal virtue, in the hope, by asking
a very great deal, of obtaining perhaps a little. And,
if you care to read further, you will learn how two young
swans of the swan-kingdom came soaring over the lake of
seduction ; how they reported ecstatically on it to their
King; how, after long deliberation, against the counsel
of Sumukha, the Bodhisatta with all his followers rose
up and flew to Benares. And there, on that lake of
temptation, the Bodhisatta was snared by a cunning
fowler, at the command of King Brahmadatta. Mindful
as always of others only, Bodhisatta uttered a loud
warning cry, and in an instant all his host of swans rose
up into the air and departed, making great lamentation.
Sumukha alone remained at the side of imprisoned
Bodhisatta. And there Sumukha and Bodhisatta strove
in generosity, one against the other: Sumukha refusing to
seek safety for himself and leave his lord a prisoner ;
Bodhisatta insisting that he should go and save himself
while yet there was time. But while they pleaded one
with another, the fowler rushed forth and found the
two royal birds an easy prey. But only one of them
was bound in the snare. So he was greatly astonished,
and eagerly asked Sumukha why he had not used his
opportunities of escape. Then Sumukha replied to him
in human words, ‘ whose sonorous firmness showed his
virtuous nature,’ that if the fowler held Bodhisatta in a
snare of cords, so he, Sumukha, was held by Bodhisatta
in the far stronger snare of the Bodhisatta’s holiness and
wisdom. ‘And the fowler fell into ecstasy, and the hairs
THE WATER-GARDEN 263

of his neck stood on end.’ Then Sumukha pleaded with
him, urging the glory of merit he would reach through
releasing Bodhisatta. And the fowler, adoring the self-
denial of Sumukha, was melted to the depths of a heart
that his harsh trade had never hardened. So he unbound
the cord and released Our Lord Bodhisatta. And then
in gratitude, both Sumukha and Bodhisatta offered
themselves freely to the man, that he might win rich
rewards by taking them, unbound, as a spectacle to
Brahmadatta the King. So the fowler carried the two
royal swans into the presence of the King, and before
Brahmadatta the Holy One lifted up his voice for holiness,
unfolding the Most Blessed Way; and the fowler bore
witness that the ardour of Sumukha’s prayer for the
release of Bodhisatta arose from pure readiness to lay
down life for his master. And thus, after much profitable
discourse, the King was filled with wonder and piety ;
he released the two royal swans, ‘who soared upwards
through the clear autumn air, dark-blue as a polished
sword-blade,’ and departed to their old waters, where a
myriad swans received with clamours of joy the return
of their Lord, with Sumukha close behind him as a
shadow. But Bodhisatta, overflowing in compassion for
his neighbour, returned again and again to the King,
and opened to him the perfect path of wisdom and
release from sorrow. And the King honoured the great
swan respectfully, with bowed head and humility.
Beautiful though we may build our ponds and keep
them, I fear it is not likely we shall ever allure a Bod-
hisatta. Nearest approach to a divine swan will be a
very worldly heron, filled with belly-thoughts and murder,
who will come to take toll of any little frogs and fishes
that may be enjoying our waters. Nor are saintly herons,
I believe, so common that the prayer of frog or fish may
turn their hearts to kindness; therefore if you want to
264 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

nourish goldfish in your pools, see to it that the water
be deep enough to guarantee them from the heron’s
marauding bill. Indeed, the too common fault in pond-
building is shallowness, which fosters slime and water-
weed to an intolerable extent, and makes more disastrous
the silting up of dead leaves in autumn and winter. A
shallow pond must needs be exhaustively cleaned out
each season, and even so the job will never be satisfactory
for more than a month. Intolerable sight, a shallow
little basin all a muck of weeds and autumn wreckage ;
not to mention that water-weed clogs and ultimately
conquers even the most stalwart Nymphaeas. Therefore I
would prescribe no less a depth than four feet for the
pond, and will now begin at last to prescribe for those
who refuse to be daunted by my jeremiads, and insist on
having a water-garden. And, first of all, let me say that
if the water-garden be hard to keep in order, yet, if kept
in order, dainty and clean, it is the very jewel and eye
and omphalos of the rock-garden, doubling its own
beauty by the neighbourhood of grey stone, and doubling
the beauty of the stone by its own limpid light. Pray,
then, and make offering to the high gods that you may
have running water in abundance at your disposal. So you
shall have a little mountain stream to bubble and splash
through the rock-garden, trickling dispersedly down over
the shoulder of the Alpine bog, and so to leap like Niagara
into a bright sparkling little lake below.

In planning your lake, be very careful of its curves.
Map and scheme with the utmost deliberation. Unfor-
tunately, this is not a question for general law-giving,
as the lie of each piece of ground must determine the
proper shape of any piece of water. But a misplaced
bay or promontory will be as fatal to the harmony of
your design as a duly, tactfully placed one will be satis-
fying and completing. Therefore go at the shaping of
THE WATER-GARDEN 265

your pond with pains, and don’t rest content with a
mere circle or oval, like the bed of some great pie or
pudding. Excavate, then, to four feet and a half at one
end—for I advise a kidney-shape, with many variants, as
the best general design for the pond—and at the lower
end have a lesser depth—say about three feet to three
feet and a half. For remember that this is not your
depth as you will have it, since the concrete bottom will
swallow up at least six inches if you wish to be quite safe
against any possible shiftings, frosts, and other disasters.
This, with a superimposed six inches of soil, will leave you,
at your deepest, three feet and a half of water at the
deeper end, and two and a half at the shallower. If you
delve any deeper, you may have too much water for some
of the frailer Nymphaeas ; if you spare trouble and make
your pond shallower, you run the risk, in hard winters,
of having the pond frozen solid, so that the cement,
unable to contain the expanded mass, cracks and bursts.

You will add a notable advantage and beauty if you
give the pond a false wall. That is to say, make it a
solid tank of cement, with four sides and bottom, quite
simple. Then, in brick, build an inner wall, rising to
within an inch or so of water-level. If the narrow trench
thus formed—it need not be more than eight inches wide
—be filled with rich soil on a rubble base of two feet or
so, it will give you a most lovely ring of bog-plants round
your lake, being perpetually wet with the water that just
overtaps the false inner wall, and for ever percolates into
the soil. There is, of course, no need to have this all
round, if you do not want it, but one of the loveliest
pools I know sits high on a Surrey down, and owes half
its beauty to its complete girdle of Iris, Spiraea, and fen-
plants generally.

Again, nothing looks better than to diversify your
bank here and there with some bold feature. Here and
266 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

there round my two ponds I have immense boulders of
water-worn mountain limestone, specially selected blocks,
hollowed by wind and weather, in which I grow waving
masses of Saxifrage and Dianthus over the water; or,
yet again, you may very effectively bring the line of your
lake round under some dominant cliff of the rockwork.
I have done this at one point of my New Garden, with
the most commanding effect. The one drawback is that the
walk round the pond—an indispensable feature—is nar-
rowed, at this point, to an irreducible minimum of about
six inches. So that if, for instance, one wants to photo-
graph any plant on the promontory, one runs the risk, in
the course of the photographer’s manceuvres, of walking
innocently backwards into four feet of water.

And, for a last word on shape. I can give one very
definite and valuable piece of advice. Wherever you
make your ponds, never let any consideration seduce you
into allowing straight lines or anything approaching to a
square or rectangle. One of the finest collections of
Nymphaeas that I know is quite spoiled from the decora-
tive point of view by being grown in a chain of raw-
looking little pools, more or less square, bounded by stiff,
straightish lines, and looking sadly artificial in their
bevelled banks of lawn. Close by there is a pool built
with proper wildness and elegance of design, and the
contrast is beautifully instructive. Of course, when you
are dealing with the formal garden, and are growing
water-lilies as splendid adjuncts, not as the be-all and
end-all of the scheme, your square pool is well in place.
Under some stately terrace wall, what could be more
fitting than a long, long pool, perfectly rectangular,
rimmed with dressed stone, embedded in shorn turf, and
containing crowns of Nymphaea at regular intervals?
But for the pool as the completion of the rock-garden,
anything at all suggestive of formality, such as a straight
THE WATER-GARDEN 267

line or a bare grass-edging, should always be most rigidly
eschewed.

Before we turn to the actual aquatics themselves, there
is the bordering rim of swamp to be planted. Here,
according to your width, you may have as many plants as
you please. Seeing that the glory of the bog-and-water-
garden rages from midsummer through autumn, it is as
well to accept the fact, and plant for August effect. Here
the soil, of course, will be too wet for all lilies except
pardalinum, Gray, Roezlii, canadense, and superbum.
But you will have clumps and tufts of the Japanese and
the Siberian Iris, you will have as many of the damp-
loving Spiraeas as you have room for, you will have one
bulky mass of Senecio Clivorum, groups of the Willow-
Gentian, stately colonies of T'halictrum aquilegifolium,
and the herbaceous tall Phloxes;—remembering always
that in planting for pomp of effect the secret is to strike
a note of colour hard and firm and once for all, rather
than to go on repeating it, no matter how well-beloved,
here and there, in a spotty and uncertain manner. Plant
your one big clump of a favourite plant, and then be
done with it; don’t spoil the ‘coup’ by vain repeti-
tions.

Most dazzling of all colour-schemes is that afforded by
the tall American Lobelias and their hybrids, In shades
of the most fearful vermilion range cardinalis, fulgens,
and. the various roses, red and pinks of Gerardi, graceful
and lofty; then comes the group of syphilitica, bearing
rather shorter, stockier spikes in sapphire, amethyst, and
violet. Also there are fancy-named hybrids, such as
Queen Victoria, a glorified cardinalis. All these, hardy and
robust, are admirable for a big group at the water’s edge,
and at the same time in any fair climate may be trusted
to look after themselves in any deep rich soil. But, at
the same time, their colour is so keen, clean, and startling,
268 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

that you have to be very careful how you introduce it.
Not a Spiraea in the whole garden but shrieks piteously
in the neighbourhood of that relentless vermilion ;
the Panther Lily turns acrid, and the orange of Senecio
Clivorum completes a chord almost too powerful for
endurance. The only other Lobelia of importance—for
radicans has turned out unable to bear our sunless
summers, and grows perpetually without flowering '\—
is the queer little aquatic Dortmanna. Lobelia Dort-
manna inhabits mountain lakes in northern England,
Wales, and Scotland, growing, like any Chara, right at
the bottom of the water, making its little tuft of fat,
linear, blunt-ended leaves under four feet or so of Alpine
tarn. Then, in summer, up through the ripple comes
the flower-stalk, and unfolds three or four large flowers
of very pale China blue, just above the surface of the
water. I first saw Dortmanna among the Welsh moun-
tains, in drying mud-flats beside a little lake, and, though
I confess I have never yet grown it, I see no reason at all
why it should not be as easy as it certainly is pretty.
As a rule, difficulty and ill-temper are not the prevailing
faults of aquatic plants. Rather the other way.

‘There are one or two other cautions I would hint as to
planting the edge of your pond. Do not overdo the use
of Iris. The Irises, in their sword-like foliage, give you
a charm of the first order. Do not cheapen it by too
frequent use and repetition; let us have one or two Iris
clumps, contrasting with the other, lusher leafage, rather
than weaken the effect of both by dotting Irises too
copiously along the shore. I would counsel three or four
clumps of sthrica, arranged in a row—sibirica is ex-
tremely decorative thus, in a row—and one sheaved mass
of Kaempferi, at a commanding, prominent point of the
edge; while, of course, you will use, not more than once,

1 This last winter, too, has finally cured it of even that good habit.
THE WATER-GARDEN 269
the tropical growth of gigantea and the kindred of

gigantea, spuria Monnieri and the rest.

Another small hint; it isno bad thing to make your
edging of uneven height—that is, especially, to build it
up, at one point, if possible, to a bulk of rock-work,
impending immediately over the water. And, for such a
high point most delightful is the common Great Solomon’s
Seal, whose tall, indescribable majesty is thus shown to
the very best advantage. Stately is the Great Solomon’s
Seal always, but most particularly in autumn, and, if you
give it such a lofty lonely place it will return you a picture
of pure wan gold in late autumn, magically soft and
beautiful, the clearest softest note of all amid the russets,
saffrons, and sere browns of those last dreadful days.
On a still, chill autumn afternoon, amid the bronze and
purple of dead fern fronds, the withered seed-vessels
of Iris, the dry brown plumes of Spiraea, tower the clean
gold croziers of the Polygonatum, mirrored, pale and clear,
in the brown sad water, choked already with wreckage of
leaves, blue with ghostly reflections of the sky. And
those arched sprays of pure yellow seem the very incar-
nation of autumn, uncomplaining, phantasmal, motion-
less, unutterably meek and tragic.

Along the outer edge of the bog belt, under your eye
as you stroll round, you will, if it be wide enough, have
all the choice little bog plants for which you have room
—Primulas, Gentians, small Saxifrages, Alpine Butter-
cups, and so forth. But, seeing that the small bog
plants are so small, and the large bog plants so very
large, not to say rampageous, it is far best to give up a
section of the belt entirely to little things, rather than
try to grow them all round under the shadow of larger
neighbours. Middle-sized robust things that will be useful
all round, on the outer edge of tall giants such as Iris
Monnieri, are Gentiana asclepiadea, all the Globe-flowers
270 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

Ranunculus aconitifolius, Anemone rivularis, Thalictrum
aquilegifolium, Lychnis haageana, Spiraea japonica, with
its fellows, and Mimulus Model and Mimulus Brilliant—
which are also magnificent on the inner edge, pushing
masses of rose and vermilion right out over the water—
and, of course, besides the larger Primulas, pulverulenta,
japonica, and sikkimensis, the invaluable, gorgeous Myo-
sotis palustris, which, like the Mimulus, is no less beautiful
and effective for the very water's edge itself.

If, too, you plant Potentilla Comarum and Menyanthes
trifoliata on the rim of the pond, they will both spread
and ramp forwards across the face of the ripples. Calla
palustris, on the other hand, is, I think, happiest when
within root grip of wet fat mud. The Potentilia and the
Menyanthes thrive quite happily, emitting tufted silky
roots into the water, but the bog-Arum prefers the help
of a little soil, making mats of heart-shaped leaves across
the wet marsh, and sending up all along its branches the
white flowers, miniatures of Calla ethiopica. Orontium
aquaticum, another Aroid, with yellow spathe, loves
shallow water, but, for my own part, I have never
admired its colour, its shape, or anything about it, and
therefore have never made any prolonged effort to grow
it. Hottonia palustris is a dainty native, for quite shallow
depths, filling a whole pool with white fibres and masses
of the finest lacy foliage, from which shoot up above the
depths, whorled spikes of very large flowers of a very pale
rose-violet. With this I have never had much to do.
My efforts to establish it did not prosper, and, so heartily
does it grow when the will takes it, that I do not alto-
gether regret the fact that, in my case, the will was
lacking.

Of course, if you want a very full collection of water-
plants, you will not only build one false wall, giving you
a marshy edging to your pond, but also, within that
 

PRIMULA [NVOLUCRATA, PRIMULA CORTUSOEIDES, PRIMULA DEORUM.
THE WATER-GARDEN Q71

again, you will contrive a second, lower, false wall, form-
ing a trench whose surface shall be covered by six inches
of water or so. Here you will have many pretty and
interesting things to grow, which would not enjoy the
greater depths that suit the robust Nymphaeas, and, at
the same time, want more abundant wet than they could
get in the marsh. Among these the Arrowroots stand
high, though personally I have never cared for any of
them. They are very free and vigorous, about a foot or
eighteen inches, with abundance of arrow-headed, glossy
leaves, and spikes of large, three-petalled white flowers,
whose general effect, despite their size, is dull and cold,
owing to the rather repellent shade of their white. They
have double forms, too, and at least one rare species,
montevidéensis, with much more brilliant flowers, but un-
fortunately of rather doubtful hardiness. Sagittaria
japonica is the best ordinary one, better than our own
native Sagittaria palustris. hen come the Alismas, of
which our common native, Alisma plantago, is a most
decorative plant, with big handsome leaves, like a horse-
radish, and tall, very graceful loose spires and showers of
innumerable tiny white flowers. This, unfortunately, is
a dreadful weed, and sows itself everywhere. On the
other hand, it does not spread or run, and is always easy
to uproot. Alisma natans is a very elfin little dainty
water plant, absolutely aquatic, and a great rarity, occur-
ring here and there in our mountain lakes of Ireland
and the West. The stems of this are so fine as to be
invisible. Over the water lie little round leaves of
glossy green, and big white flowers, three-petalled, that
seem to float detached, loose jewels on the surface.
Similar is Hydrocharis Morsus-Ranac, but commoner,
larger in growth, and altogether less brilliant. Rare in
the marshes of East Anglia is the water-Aloe, Stratiotes
aloeides, exactly like a thorny, submerged aloe, with
272 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

spikes of whitish flowers. This, however, with me at
least, lives so far under water, and flowers so sparsely,
that it really has no value for the garden. Azolla caro-
liniana has the habit and the leafage of Alisma natans,
without the brilliant flowers. rapa natans, the water-
Chestnut of Italian lakes, is another interesting aquatic,
not perhaps absolutely hardy, with queer thorny edible
nuts, contorted and devilish in outline. Then there are
our own river-buttercups, Ranunculus aquatilis, in many
varieties, with fine ferny foliage and abundance of big
white blossoms. This, however, is so ramping a water-weed
that it should never be admitted to any pond that is not
measured by the mile. Much as the same applies to
a cousin of the Gentians, Villarsia nymphacoeides, with
leaves exactly like a wee Nymphaea, and solitary flowers,
large, fluffy yellow cups, like golden, single-flowered
Menyanthes. This is a fearful invader, and has choked
up every piece of water into which it was ever admitted.
On the other hand, its near, and prettier relation, Limnan-
themum villarsiocides, is not trustworthy in point of
rusticity.

If you crave for curiosities, in some wet spongy place
of the inner bog, you might grow the Sarracenias and
Darlingtonia californica. Both Sarracenia purpurea and
Darlingtonia californica are hardy, if well treated, but
the Pitcher-plants require a good deal of attention, and,
to my taste, are not altogether worthy of it, though their
deep swelling jugs of bronze, emerald, and purple are
strange enough for anything, and only surpassed by their
pendulous flowers, like enormous blind Poppies designed
by Aubrey Beardsley, and carried out in lard, coloured
with various shades of red, green, and yellow. These odd
rare creatures require a great deal of moisture, a sheltered
warm position, and very perfect drainage, if they are to
be permanent.
THE WATER-GARDEN 273

The Wood-Lilies, on the other hand, require no atten-
tion beyond good planting, and are among the grandest
of all plants for any corner of the garden wet or dry, in
any cool moist climate, in any deep rich soil—peaty,
loamy or, best of all, leafy—but not limy. In the copse,
in the wild-garden, beside the stream, on the shady rock-
work, wherever Solomon’s Seal and Lily of the Valley will
thrive, there may you also have clumps and drifts and
beds of Trillium. And Trillium, for general garden
purposes, means T'rilliwm grandiflorum, the sovereign of
the race. The great Wood-Lily, in growth and texture
and height, is exactly like a three-leaved version of our
own rare north-countryman, Paris quadrifolia, from the
Alpine woods. But who is there that does not know the
flower, that huge, tripetalled snowy goblet, so different
from the inconspicuous little quaint green bloom of
Paris? Trillium grandiflorum stands well ahead among
plants of the first rank for the rock-garden,—of perfect
ease, hardiness, and persistence. Slugs and mice, however,
are its bitter enemies here—or perhaps ardent inarticu-
late admirers, who can only show their admiration by
eating its object. Its rosy variety is lovely, but cannot
possibly improve on the snowy type—exquisite as is the
harmony that my plants are now making in a big bed
which they share with their contemporary, profusely
pink-belled little Menziesia empetriformis. And Trillium
grandiflorum will vary very much in size and splendour
from one importation—some forms almost reaching the
snowy magnificence of a young Lilium candidum, or Mag-
noka Yulan, while others are comparatively—but only
comparatively—poor. Trillium sessile has beauty in its
three broad marbled leaves, but its big flowers are narrow
in petal and dull in colour, except in the variety califor-
nicum, which is larger and longer than grandiflorum, of a
bright, warm white, but inferior in effect, owing to its

s
274 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

narrowness of petal, and its habit of sitting close upon
the leaves. Trillium erectum and Trillium stylosum are
dull, to my taste, and dowdy,—pink and purple. Triliwm
erythrocarpum is a tiny jewel, delicate and rather difficult,
small, with snow-pure flowers, like miniatures of grandi-
florum, but with a blotch of blood-crimson at the base
of each segment. This requires attention on the choice
peat-bed, but all the others thrive in any open woodland
soil, free and moist, luxuriating in the filtered light of a
thin copse or hollow in the woods. However, the Wood-
lilies, blooming in May and June, though lovely by the
water-side, are perhaps more glorious still for the lily-
bank and copse and rockwork. They have great resisting
power, too, for I remember seeing one in Hokkaido—
probably Trilkum secundum, a small version of grandi-
jlorum, coping successfully with the roots of Bambusa
Veitchi. The Bamboo covered the country by the mile,
and not a square inch of soil can have been free of its
roots. Yet everywhere amid that two-foot jungle were
visible the white stars of the Trillium, quite unsubdued
by the rambling growth of the Bamboo. This, however,
must not be literally presumed on in the garden. Except
into the wild garden there is not a Bamboo that can be
trusted—-making an honourable exception for Mazximo-
wiczit and erecta, graceful and effective, like Pampas and
stripe-leaved Hulaha zebrina, at the edge of the water.
Now dive we into the depths of the pond itself. From
two to three feet is the happiest depth for beautiful Pon-
tederia cordata, with broad, splendid leaves, and tall spikes
of blue flowers that unfold too late in the season to be of
any use to me. The Pontederia will also grow in shallower
water, but one wants to avoid, as far as possible, the peril
of frosts. The same applies to the even more splendid
and. tropical Thaleia dealbata, which is hopeless for my
climate, and to the common Arum of the greenhouse.
THE WATER-GARDEN Q75

With a pool of two feet depth any one may hope in rich
deep soil to have blooming beds of Calla ethiopica, per-
fectly hardy as the plant is—or rather becomes, if its
roots are planted in water beyond reach of any but an
extraordinary frost.

In the south and west of England indeed the Cadla has
become a water-weed, blooming by the acre; and there
is no sort of reason why, in any fairly clement part of
England, the same gorgeous result could not be achieved.
But the Calla must be planted in a broad sweep, and I have
not had space enough so far to deal with it massively by
the hundred yards. As an isolated crown I flowered it
well and enjoyed it for several seasons in my old pond.
But this was so ridiculously shallow that it froze solid and
cracked every winter. After three such experiences the
Calla grew peevish and expired. Now, however, that I
am restoring the pool on a proper scale, I shall renew
my experiments with the Arum, and hope for finer and
more permanent results, even though my pond is not
large enough for it to be used as freely as it should, to
gain its full effect.

Two other important plants are Aponogeton and Buto-
mus umbellatus. The Flowering Rush loves shallow,
sluggish water, and is found by streams and canals al]
England over—in appearance a big lax-leaved rush, until
you see, on tall stems, its flattened heads of large pale pink
flowers. This flourishes in any water not too deep, and
its only drawback is its tendency to become a weed. A
fortiori the same applies to the giant Bulrush, magnificent
as it is, and to pretty, fluffy-balled Sparganiwm ramosum,
and to the great Dock, one of the handsomest of foliage
plants, no matter what exotic rivals you may adduce.
Much slenderer, and safe to admit, though, is Typha minor.
The lesser Bulrush is far slighter and more graceful] than
its major—a fine gracious thing, sufficiently rampant in
276 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

shallow muddy water, but not dangerously prolific, if kept
in hand—and very delightful with its long thin leaves
and its refined dainty spears of brown plush. The Apono-
geton is quite different, so like a Potamogeton in growth
that I am always confusing the names. It throws its
oval leaves along the surface of the water though, not
particular, I think, as to depth, but perhaps preferring
about eighteen inches to two feet. In midwinter and
through a long scattered season unfold the curious,
divided spikes of white flowers, deliciously hawthorn-
scented, and appearing in such abundance as to make the
water look as if covered with drifted snow of petals.
Though the Aponogeton hails from South Africa, it is
absolutely hardy, if given sufficient protecting depth of
water, and left to look after itself in some still pool.

Almost all aquatics dislike running water, or rather
water in too rapid movement. And, at the head of the
list come the Queens of the Water Garden, the royal
Nymphs themselves. From the common white Water-
Lily of our lakes to the newest reddest dearest hybrid,
all alike must have deep tranquil water, unworried by a
violent current, though not, of course, in a state of stag-
nation. The best thing, in cultivation, is to give your
pool, if you lack a mild feeding stream, a tiny little
incessant jet at one end or the other, to keep the water
perpetually fresh and moving, to the confusion of green
slime and weed.

There is no need, now, to trouble with the common
white Water-Lily. So much larger, so much stronger,
so much more brilliantly white are the big foreigners and
hybrids, candida, gigantea, Richardsoni, gladstoniana,
of which Richardsoni has the merit of pushing its great
semi-globular white blossoms high above the water.
Between any of these and the others in the matter
of vigour, there is nothing at all to choose. For the
THE WATER-GARDEN Q77

larger Water-Lilies are of the most weedlike vigour.
Plant them in a hamper filled with clay and manure ;
drop them into a still pool; cut away the trees so that
they may have full sun; and then they will grow like
rhubarb, and flower like French Marguerites.

Of the yellow Water-Lilies—I am talking of Nym-
phaea, of course, not of the common vulgar Brandy-
Bottle, and its brother, Nuphar Advena, from America,
whose upstanding foliage is very handsome, though its
dull yellow globes are no better than those of dutewn—
the panhypersebastos is marliacea Chromatella, magnificent
in its wealth of immense foliage, bronze green and violet,
doubly and trebly magnificent in its huge sulphur flowers,
generous in build, ample in breadth and texture of petal.
Flava is half-hardy, lutea is smaller ; no yellow—hardly
any other Nymph, approaches gigantic, splendid Chroma-
tella. ‘The nearest approach is the similar colossea, largest
of all the race, with great blossoms of soft pale pink.
The American hybrid, too, William Doogue, has the
same ample splendour, and a deeper shade of flesh.

The other rosy Water-Lilies are inferior, though
pretty. Their tendency is to run towards thinness of
petal and starriness of outline. Also they are almost all
of frailer, smaller growth, adapted to shallower water.
Thus are the Laydekeri lilies, purpurea and khacea;
the Carolinianas, rosea and perfecta ; odorata and odor-
ata carnea, and rare blushing sphaerocarpa from the far
North. Either a sport or a seedling of sphaerocarpa is
bright frail Froebelit, weak in growth, small in bloom,
but of a rich carmine crimson. This is a delicate little
treasure,—the only Water-Lily that is,—and should have
less depth of water and a choice place. Some of the
hybrids, too, have the starry thin form I cavil at in the
smaller pink lilies ; it mars the effectiveness of Seignour-
ett, ignea, flammea, Robinsoniana, lucida—lovely, subtly-
278 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

coloured things that they are, in shades of fire, rose,
dawn and cream. But among red Nymphaeas there are
three glorious plants. The first is William Falconer, an
American, small in growth, and not enormous in flower ;
but the plant is very free and very healthy ; the flowers
are of the deepest crimson purple that has yet been seen
in the family. Ellisiana is a larger plant, with flowers of
a fine blood-crimson ; the pride of the three, if not of the
whole family, is gloriosa, a giant only less than Chroma-
tella in growth, with immense abundant flowers of a
dazzling carmine crimson.

For my own part I should be inclined to suggest omit-
ting all the minor Water-Lilies, the Laydekeris, Caroli-
nianas, and so forth (except the charming little miniature,
Helvola, for shallow water), and concentrating simply on
the best, the largest in growth, the freest in flower, the
finest in build and in substance. For, truth to tell, the
minor Water-Lilies, however lucent in colouring, are, to my
taste, mean and poor in shape. Therefore I would, space
being limited, grow only, for the smaller sorts in shallower
water, Helvola, William Falconer, and Frocbelit; for
the full depths, William Doogue, Richardsoni, gigantea,
colossea, Chromatella, and gloriosa. For you would miss
nothing good, and, as the less is included in the greater,
have at your disposal all the glory of the Water-Lilies.
And a glory it is. They have a perverse habit, in my
pools, of opening in the late afternoon of a dull day;
and to go round, in a dank dripping world, and come
suddenly on the glowing crimson goblets of Nymphaea
gloriosa or Chromatella, expanded among their marbled
bronzy leaves, and mirrored flawlessly in the cold, brown
water, is one of the garden’s most welcome surprises.
But when, oh! when shall we, to complete our collections,
have a big blue brother to gloriosa and Chromatella,
a hardy celestial offspring of scutellata or zanzibarensis ?
THE WATER-GARDEN 279

The most august, however, of water-plants—and I make
no apology to the earthly royalty of Nymphaea, is the
heavenly holiness of Nelumbium. But up to this time
the Holy Lotus has refused all the blandishments of the
unholy West. With hot-water pipes and other expen-
sive illegitimate contraptions, it may be lured, in our
pools, to emit one or two pale blossoms, but it must not
be trusted in winter, and our summers never ripen it
sufficiently for next year’s show of bloom. And yet I
nourish a hope that if one procures Nelumbium from its
most northerly limit of distribution in Japan, from cold
places where it is frozen solid for more than a quarter of
the year, one ought, in time, to evolve a hardy race that
will glorify our garden with a glory as far exceeding Mym-
phaea as Nymphaea excels all other glories of the water.
This should be no over-sanguine hope, too; for, though
there are many Nelumbiums, yet Nelumbiwm speciosum
ranges from southerly Ceylon to almost arctic Japan,
and should therefore offer in its range some sturdy
varieties of constitution. And no pains are too great
to pay for the achievement of that end; to see
the Holy Flower, analogue of the human soul, breaking
in perfect and flawless loveliness from the filthy slime of
the pond. Even so the human soul may break out in
perfect and flawless beauty from all the filth and slime of
the world. And thus, for its analogy, the Lotus is eternally
hallowed, the consecrated flower to that Most Perfect of
all souls that ever bloomed out of the world’s mire.

THE END.
INDEX

Acantholimon androsaceum, 137.

” glumosum, 137.
+ venustum, 137.
Acanthus Candelabrum, 140.

ap mollis, 140.

35 Perringi, 140.
Achillea atrata, 126.

»,  Clavennae, 126.

»  Jaborneggi, 126,

»  Kellereri, 126.
mongolica, 126,
moschata, 126,
ptarmica, 126.
serbica, 126.
sericea, 127.
Adenostyles alpina, 131, 225.
Adonis amurensis, 51.

»>  pyrenaica, 51.
vernalis, 51.

»  wolgensis, 51.
Aethionema armenum, 66.
coridifolium, 66.
creticum, 66.
diastrophis, 66.
grandiflorum, 66.
iberideum, 66.
jucundun, 66.
‘Gsm natans, 271.

5 plantago, 271,

Allium Erdelii, 230.
hierochunticum, 230.
kansuense, 230.
neapolitanum, 230.
ostrowskyanum, 229.
pulchellum, 230.
Schoenoprason, 230.
Schuberti, 230.
triquetrum, 230.

a

”

”

”

 

Allosorus crispus, 248.
Alsine laricifolia, 98.
»,  ledebouriana, 98.
»  Ppinifolia, 98.
»,  Rosani, 98.
Alyasum alpestre, 63.
» Fl. Pl., 63.
»>  gemonense, 63.
»,  idaeum, 63.
» mMaritimum, 63.
>, Montanum, 63.
+,  podolicum, 63.
»  Saxatile, 63.

55 citrinum, 63.
Amphiooarpus Neumeyeri, 128.
Anagallis tenella, 241-2.
Anchusa italica, Dropmore var.,

145,
Andromeda polifolia, 244.
Androsace brigantiaca, 91.

a carnea, 90.

re »  eXimia, 90.

53 Chaixii, 92.
coronopifolia, 92.
glacialis, 155, 237, 242.
hédraeantha, 91.
imbricata, 88-9.
lactea, 91-2.
macrantha, 93.

2 Mathildae, 93.
raddeana, 92.
septentrionalis, 92.
vitaliana, 90-1.
weutene rivularis, 183, 270.

35 robinsoniana, 204, 243.
Anemonopsis macrophylla, 50.
Antennaria dioica, 128.

Anthemis aeizoén, 127.
281
282 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

Anthemis Biebersteinii, 127.
3 montana, 127.
Anthyllis montana, 111.
x vulneraria, 111.
Antirrhinum asarinum, 148.
i glutinosum, 148.
3 sempervirens, 148.

Aphyllanthes monspeliensis, 245.

Aponogeton distachyon, 275-6.
Arabis albida, 62.
>  Billiardierii rosea, 62.
»» lucida variegata, 62.
»  Sturii, 62.
Aralia cordata, 120-1.
Arenaria balearica, 98.
»  Ciliata, 98.
»  gothica, 219.
»  graminifolia, 98.
»  Huteri, 98.
», Montana, 98.
1  norvegica, 98.
purpurascens, 98.
Apethusa bulbosa, 244.
Arisaema japonicum, 249.
Arisarum proboscideum, 248-9.
Armeria caespitosa, 136.
we cephalotes, 136.
os plantaginea, 136.
Arnebia echioeides, 144.
Arnica montana, 182-3, 229, 242,
Aronicum glaciale, 181-2.
re scorpioeides, 181-2.
Arum crinitum, 249-50.
Asarum europaeum, 250.
+  Sieboldi, 250.
Asperula Athoa, 121.
»,  eynanchica, 121.
» odorata, 121.
Aster acris, 125.
» alpinus, 82, 242,
», canescens, 124,
3,  cassiarabicus, 124,
», diplostephioeides, 124.
1  ereicoeides, 125.
>, Fendleri, 125,
», Fremonti, 124.
»,  latifolius, 124.
» Porteri, 124.

 

Aster pyrenaeus, 123, 191.
»  Townsendi, 124.
Astilbe Davidi, 175-6.
» grandis, 176.
Astragalus ambiguus, 110.
58 hypoglottis, 110.
aa mongolicus, 110.
- tragacanthus, 110.
5 Vandasii, 111.
Atragene alpina, 49-50.
Aubrietia Moerheimi, 61.
a ‘Craven Gem,’ 62,
ee * Dr. Mules,’ 62.
she ‘Pritchard’s Al,’ 62,
a ‘Purple Robe,’ 62.
Azalea alpina, 27-8.
»  calendulacea, 29.
» indica, 29.
> mollis, 29.
Vaseyi, 29.
‘Accolte caroliniana, 272.

Bambusa erecta, 46.

a Henonis, 47.

5 Maximowiczii, 47.

35 Metaké, 47.

ee nigra, 47, 206.

a palmata, 46-7.

- pygmaea, 46.

ax quadrangularis, 46.

ee ruscifolia, 46.

2 senanensis, 47.

Veitchi, 46.

Bellidiastrum Michelii, 125.
Bellis coerulescens, 125.

» sylvestris, 125-6.
Bellium minutum, 126.
Bocconia cordata, 56.
Brickellia grandiflora, 129.
Buddleia asiatica, 20.

as Colvillei, 20-1.
a5 globosa, 20.
variabilis, 20.
Batons umbellatus, 275.

Cacalia tuberosa, 129.
Calandrinia umbellata, 104.
Calla ethiopica, 274-5.
INDEX

Calla palustris, 270.
Callirhoé involucrata, 103-4.
Calopogon pulchellus, 244,
Camellia Japonica, 36.
a reticulata, 34-5.
ze Sasankwa, 35-6.
ai Thea, 35.
Campanula amabilis, 140.
ae barbata, 79, 242.
ag floribunda, 140.
a macrantha, 183.
ee pusilla, 78-9, 225.
“5 raddeana, 140,
ey Scheuchzeri, 81.
Cardamine bulbifera, 255,
a digitata, 255.
33 enneaphylla, 255.
a3 pratensis, Fl. Pl., 255.
ie trifolia, 255.
Carduncellus minimus, 128,
Carduus eriophorus, 128.
>,  heterophyllus, 183-4.
Carlina acanthifolia, 129.
>  acaulis, 128-9.
>, vulgaris, 129.
Catheartia lyrata, 60.
+ villosa, 60.
Cedrus atlantica Comte de Dijon,
44-5. :
Centaurea (the race), 131.
Cerastium alpinum, 97.

ae glaciale, 97.
ae repens, 97.
is tomentosum, 97.

Chamaemelon caucasicum, 127.
Chimonanthus fragrans, 18, 19.
Chrysanthemum alpinum, 237.
ue indicum, 238.
sa lapponicum, 238.
“3 nipponicum, 238.
6h Tchihatchewi, 238.
+ Zawadskyi, 238.
Chrysogonum virginianum, 127.
Cicendia pusilla, 241.
Cimicifuga davurica, 188.
Cistus (the race), 38-9.
Clematis (the race), 49.
Cochlearia a]pina, 64.

 

283

Codonopsis ovata, 141.

Convolvulus arvensis, 139-40.
mauritanicus, 140.
ia Sabatius, 140.
oF Soldanella, 140.

Corallorhiza innata, 222.

Coris monspeliensis, 149.

Cornus canadensis, 9.

>  suecica, 9.

Coronilla emerus, 112-13.

ie iberica, 113.

a6 varia, 112.

Cortusa Matthioli, 236.
Corydalis lutea, 60.

5 solida, 60.
Cotoneaster pyrenaica, 44.
Crambe cordifolia, 255.
Cupressus torulosa, 45,
Cyclamen libanoticum, 138.

2 (the race), 138.
Cydonia Maulei, 44.
Cynoglossum apenninum, 145.

sie pictum, 145.
Cypripedium acaule, 224.
Ja arietinum, 225.

ty candidum, 224-5,
FA guttatum, 225.
a parviflorum, 224-5.
Cystopteris alpina, 225.
es montana, 247.
Cytisus andreanus, 44.
>»  Ardoini, 108-9.
»  biflorus, 109.
>  incarnatus, 108.
>, Xkewensis, 109.
5,  Pilosus, 43.
», procumbens, 109.
»,  Sagittalis, 44.
»,  schipkaensis, 109.
>,  tinctorius, 43.

Daphne arbuscula, 37.

»  fioniana, 36-7.

>,  Genkwa, 38.

» indica, 36.

5, mezereon, 38.
Delphinium (the race), 52.
Dianthus x cal.-alpinus, 95.
284

Dianthus integer, 94.

9 microlepis, 94.

a5 roseus, 95.

ze ‘ serotinus,’ 95.
Digitalis ambigua, 150.
Dodecatheon integrifolium, 235.

a Meadia, 235.

55 paucifiorum, 235-6.
Dondia Epipactis, 119.
Doronicum Orphanidesi, 181.

i pardalianches, 181.
59 plantagineum, 181.
Draha dicranoeides, 64.
>, (the race), 63.
Drosera (the race), 245.

Echinops humilis, 129.
Eomecon chionantha, 254.

Epilobium angustifolium, 118, 184.

6 hirsutum, 118, 184.
Epipactis palustris, 223.
Epipogon aphyllum, 222
Ereica (the race), 241.
Erigeron alpinus, 232.
Eriogyna pectinata, 139.
Erodium (the race), 106-7.
Eryngium glaciale, 119-20.

a (the race), 120.
Erysimum comatum, 67.

Fa ochroleucum, 67.

m petrowskianum, 67.
a5 pumilum, 67.
purpureum, 67.

Erythraea diffusa, 241.
Erythronium (the race), 150-1.
Eulalia zebrina, 187.

Ferula Linki, 119.
Festuca varia, 248.
Fragaria indica, 116.

» lucida, 116.

>  vesca, 116-17.
Fritillaria (the race), 150.
Fuchsia (the race), 24-5.

Galanthus Ikariae, 152.

as poculiformis, 152.
Gaultheria Shallon, 41.

ai trichophylla, 42.

 

ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

Gentiana acaulis, 225, 240.
a arvernensis, 240.
“s asclepiadea, 183.
¥6 bavarica, 226, 242.
se pumila, 240.
va purpurea, 229.
verna, 240, 242.
Geranium argenteum, 104.

a Richardsoni, 106.
os (the race), 105-6.
Geum bulgaricum, 116.

»,  Montanum, 86-7.
»,  vTeptans, 87-8, 237.
»,  Yhaeticum, 116.
Gunnera (the race), 185.
Gypsophila prostrata, 97.
“3 (the race), 97

Habenaria conopsea, 224.
Hedera minima, 44, 120.
Hedysarum (the race), 113.
Helianthemum (the race), 40.
Helleborus (the race), 50-1.
Helxine Soleiroli, 40, 258.
Heracleum mantegazzianum, 119.
Hieracium aurantiacum, 131.
Hottonia palustris, 270.
Houstonia coerulea, 121-2.
Hugueninia tanacetifolia, 78, 221.
Hutchinsia alpina, 64.
Hyacinthus amethystinus, 151.

ay orientalis, 151.
Hypericum Coris, 103.

39 olympicum, 101-2.

6 repens, 102.

Be reptans, 102.

Illicium religiosum, 42.
Iberis petraea, 65.

+ (the race), 65.
Ionopsidion acaule, 92, 239.
Tris albo-purpurea, 211-12.

»» attica, 195.

;, bosniaca, 196.

s, Delavayi, 211.

»» florentina, 196-7.

» foetidissima, 213.

+ germanica, 196.
INDEX

Tris gigantea, 213.

» graminea, 200.

», Kaempferi, 204-6.

»» Kochii, 197.

» Korolkowi, 202-3.

», Lamancei, 202.

»» Monnieri, 213.

», pallida, 197-8.

»» prismatica, 200.

>» pseud-acorus, 213-14,

» Teticulata, 199-200.

»» Sibirica, 211.

»» tectorum, 197.

>, unguicularis, 200-1.
Tsopyrum thalictroeides, 55.

Juniperus hibernica, 44.
9 pachyphlaea, 44.
si prostrata, 44,
is sanderiana, 2, 44.
55 virginiana Schotti, 45.

Kalmia alpina, 34.
>» angustifolia, 34.
» latifolia, 34.

Lastraea (the race), 248.
Lathyrus latifolius albus, 113.
os magellanicus, 114.
“ pratensis, 114.
pubescens, 114.
rotundifolius, 114.
tuberosus, 114.
Lepachys columnaris, 130.
Lewisia rediviva, 137.
3  Tweedyi, 137-8.
Liatris (the race), 192.
Lilium alutaceum, 164.
x Alexandrae, 162.
auratum and vars., 162-3.

»”

”

cry
ry

” »”

avenaceum, 165.
Batemanniae, 164.

x Burbanki, 161.
callosum, 169-70.
canadense, 170.
chalcedonicum, 164, 169.
cordifolium, 165.

platyphyllum, 165.

 

285

Lilium x Dal-Hansoni, 161.

i elegans, 164.

>»  giganteum, 166.

# Glehni, 165.

ay Grayi, 167.

we Hansoni, 164.

si Heldreichi, 160.

ae Henryi, 168.

>»,  Humboldtii, 170.

>, *Mar-han, 161.

45 maritimum, 170.

oy Martagon and vars., 161.

4G medeoloeides, 164-5,

3 monadelphum, 163-4.

Sy pardalinum, 167, 169, 173,

176.

>,  Parryi, 162, 170.

“ pomponium, 164.

5, Roezlii, 168.

5) roseum, 164.

a sulfureum, 167.

5: tenuifolium, 169.

tigrinum, 167.
Hihawa (the race), 148-9.
Linum alpinum, 100.

+  arboreum, 100.

»,  salsoloeides, 100-1.

»,  Sibiricum, 101.

viscosum, 101.
Lithospermum eranixifoliun, 143.

e (the race), 143-4.
Lloydia serotina, 122, 227-8.
Lobelia cardinalis, 267.

» Dortmanna, 268.

>, Yradicans, 268.
Lupinus argenteus, 112.

9 decumbens, 112.

»  nootkatensis, 112.

»,  Snow-Queen, 112.
Lychnis alpina, 96.

ag fulgens, 190.

si haageana, 189.

a Lagascae, 96.

e lapponica, 96.

33 pyrenaica, 96.
Sartorii, 96.
vespertina plena, 96.
‘9 viscaria, 96.
yo Dhblles pentandra, 253-4.

286 ALPINES AND
Magnolia (the race), 22.
Maianthemum bifolium, 222.
Malvastrum coccineum, 183.
Meconopsis aculeata, 56-7.
bella, 58.
cambrica, 57.
aurantiaca plena,
57, 142.
grandis, 58.
heterophylla, 59.
horridula, 59.
integrifolia, 58.
nepalensis, 59.
petiolata, 59.
punicea, 58.
racemosa, 5.
simplicifolia, 58.
Wallichi, 59-60.
iiagacaipaen polyandra, 64.
Mentha Requieni, 257-8.
Menyanthes trifoliata, 256-7.
Menziesia empetriformis, 273.
. 5,  polifolia, 41.
Mertensia (the race), 250.
Michauxia campanuloeides, 136.
5 Tchihatchewi, 136.
Mimulus Brilliant, 147, 270.
cardinalis, 147.
cupraeus, 147.
Langsdorffi, 147.
oa Model, 147.
1»  primuloeides, 147.
radicans, 147.

”
ey

a” ”

”

”
a”

a»

Mulgedium ‘alpinum (Lactuca), 131,
221.

Bourgaei, 130.

me Plumieri, 130.

e thianshanicum, 130.
Muscari (the race), 151.
Myosotis alpestris, 130.
palustris, 232-3, 270.
Rehsteineri, 257.

»»  Tupicola, 136, 939. 257,
Myrrhiactis Wallichi, 129.

”

”

”

Narcissus (the race), 150.

 

viridifiorus, 153.

”

BOG-PLANTS

Narthecium ossifragum, 243.
Nelumbium speciosum, 29, 279.
Nigritella suaveolens, 232.
Nymphaea (the race), 276-8.

Oenothera (the race), 119.
Ononis (the race), 110.
Onopordon bracteatum, 128.
Onogma (the race), 144.
Orchis (the race), 223.
Orobus (the race), 114.
hirsutus, 115.

>» varius, 115.
Oxalis acetosella, 108.
enneaphylla, 187-8.
lobata, 108.

+, rosea, 108.
Oxytropis (the race), 111.
hybrida, 111-12.
splendens, 112.

”

”

Paeonia Moutan, 5-8.

», (the race), 52-3.
Papaver tauricola, 60.

Paris quadrifolia, 273.
Parnassia fimbriata, 246.

“i palustris, 246.
Parochaetus communis, 256-7.
Parrya Menziesi, 64.
Pentstemon heterophyllus, 146-7.

x Scouleri, 146.
Phlox (the race), 141-3.

»,  suffruticosa, 192.
Phyteuma (the race), 134-6.
Pinguicula (the race), 144.
Pinus cembra, 45, 78-9.
koraiensis, 45.
massoniana, 45.
montana, 45, 79.

» sylvestris beuvronensis, 2, 44-5.
Poa alpina vivipara, 248.
Podophyllum Emodi, 190.

ay peltatum, 190-1.
Polygala chamaebuxus, 99-100.
rhodoptera, 100.

a3 Vayredae, 100.
Polygonatum multiflorum, 269.
verticillatum, 222.

”

”

”

”

”
INDEX

Polygonum baldschuanicum, 24.

on cuspidatum, 23-4,

5 Emodi, 22-3.

i. saghalinense, 23.

as sphaerostachyon, 23.

ys vaccinifolium, 22-3.

viviparum, 23, 244.

Polypodium caleareum, 247.

65 dryopteris, 246-7.

ay phegopteris, 247.
Pontederia cordata, 274.
Potentilla ambigua, 116.

si comarum, 256, 270.
54 floribunda, 13.
cs Friedrichseni, 13.

- fruticosa, 13.

43 nitida, 13-14, 115.

‘ pulcherrima, 115.

35 Tongui, 116.

ai Valderia, 115.

verna, 115.

Piteuat canadense, 187.
Prenanthes purpurea, 130-1, 222.
Primula apennina, 234.

5,  auricula Golden Queen, 233.

»  bellunensis, 234.

,,  cashmeriana, 235.

;,  eockburniana, 234.

»,  Deorum, 234.

5,  glutinosa, 235.

s, involucrata, 234.

+) japonica, 234, 270.

»,  longiflora, 234.

»,  Obristii, 234.

5  pulverulenta, 235, 270.

5, rosea, 234.

,,  Sikkimensis, 235, 270.

», similis, 234.

»  Stuarti, 234.

», x Unique, 234.
Prunus (the race), 18.
Pterocephalus Parnassi, 123.
Pulmonaria (the race), 145.
Pyrethrum (the race), 127.
Pyrus prostrata, 43.

;, spectabilis, 18.

Ranunculus aconitifolius, 18, 232, 270.

 

287

Ranunculus alpestris, 226, 232, 233,
242.
anemoneides, 233.

Blignn palmatum, 185.
Bhexia virginica, 189.
Rhododendron (the race), 31-2.

x dilatatum, 32-4.
Rodgersia (the race), 185-6.
Rosa (the race), 14-7.
Rubus (the race), 9-11.

Salix alpina, 43.
Sanguinaria canadensis, 55-6, 254.
Saponaria caespitosa, 96.
a lutea, 96-7.
5% ocymoeides
sima, 96.

* wiemanniana, 96.
Saussurea candicans, 129.
Saxifraga aeizoeides, 80, 238-9.

* aeizoén, 81-2.

= 8 lutea, 83.

e androsacea, 238.

Pr aquatica, 239.

“a biflora, 238.

53 corymbosa, 240.

a Cymbalaria, 92, 239.

8 dalmatica, 240.

9 hieracifolia, 239.

oy Hireculus major, 238.

», Xjaeggeana, 240.

PF Obristii, 240.

5 Paulinae, 239-40.

a peltata, 186-7.

58 pennsylvanica, 239.

= Petrarchae, 240.
Scabiosa caucasica, 123.

Scilla (the race), 151-2.
Sedum (the race), 133-4.

5,  vVillosum, 132, 219.
Sempervivum arachnoideum, 76-7.

splendidis-

3 i transalpinum,
76.

es calcaratum, 77.

ay Gaudini, 77.

ay Laggeri, 76-7.

‘3 montanum, 81.

3 rubicundum, 77.
288 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS

Senecio adonidifolius, 180.
»  aurantiacus, 180.
»,  ¢livorum, 176-8.
1» Doronicum, 180.
s» japonicus, 178.
>»  pulcher, 179.
s,  thianshanicus, 179.
Serissa foetida, 19.
Silene (the race), 230-1.
Sisyrinchium anceps, 244.
ei bellum, 244.
a grandiflorum, 244-5.
Pr striatum, 245.
Spigelia marilandica, 188-9.
Spiraea Aruncus, 12-13.
», digitata, 176-7.
.. Hacquetti, 11-12.

1» (herbaceous species), 173-7.

» (shrubby species), 11-13.
Stenanthium robustum, 192.
Streptopus amplexicaulis, 221-2.
Stylophorum diphyllum, 58.
Swertia perennis, 240-1.

Tchihatchewia isatidea, 67.
Thalictrum (the race), 54-5.
Tofieldia canaliculata, 244.
Trientalis europaea, 139.

 

Trifolium alpinum, 111, 228.
59 canescens, 111..

Trillium grandifiorum, 273.
1 (the race), 274.

Valeriana (the race), 122.
Verbascum decorum, 150.
Veronica (the race), 228-9.
Vicia Cracca, 113, 169.

>» sylvatica, 113.
Viola arborescens, 253.

», Dbiflora, 205.

» calearata, 205.

» cucullata, 252.

»» gracilis, 253.

» heterophylla, 253.

», hirta, 252.

», pedata, 251-7, 205.

», pinnata, chaerophylloeides,

253 (footnote).

», Rydbergi, 252.

s» sorora, 252.

» stricta, 252.

Waldsteinia geoeides, 116.
Wistaria multijuga, 17.

Xerophyllum asphodeloeides, 192.

 

Printed by T. and A. ConsTaBLE, Printers to His Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press