HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



97 



A MARSH GARDEN. 



OW that the happy 

 time for all bo- 

 tanists is coming 

 on, I think it may- 

 interest those who 

 have like myself a 

 special love for 

 bog-plants, to hear 

 of a successful ex- 

 periment made by 

 me for two suc- 

 cessive seasons. 



I set up a minia- 

 ture marsh thus : 

 I took off with a 

 trowel, so as not 

 to disturb the 

 roots, some 

 patches of the bog 

 surface, containing 

 plants of the pin- 

 guicula, others with clusters of different sorts of 

 drosera, patches with masses of the tiny bog cam- 

 panula, also some young plants of the bog asphodel. 

 I packed my patches of bog tightly in a shallow seed- 

 pan and added to them Parnassia palicst7-is sent to me 

 from Scotland and filling up all the interstices with 

 growing bits of moss. I then placed my pan in one 

 sufficiently large to allow of two Inches between the 

 inner and outer pans on all sides. The holes of the 

 outer pan were carefully -plugged and filled with water 

 which oozed naturally up through the holes in the 

 bottom of the inside pan, and placed the whole upon 

 a sunny window-sill. The water drawn up by the 

 sun kept the contents not only soft and wet, but kept 

 a warm soft atmosphere about the plants, such as 

 they had in their native habitat. If any of your 

 readers ever put their face down close to a bog to 

 look closely at its exquisite vegetation on a warm 

 sunny day, they will understand the soft warm breath 

 the plants rejoice in. 



The little marsh garden succeeded beyond my most 



sanguine expectation, the plants never felt they had 



been taken from their native land, but grew apace 



and blossomed well, the pinguiculas threw up 



No. 317.— May 1891. 



their lovely purple-headed stems, the sundews sent 

 up numberless bunches of their little white flowers, 

 the campanulas were plentiful, and the Scotch par- 

 nassus flourished and blossomed as well as if it was 

 on its own mountains. 



To my great delight I had several unexpected 

 ornaments to my marsh garden. A crop of pink 

 pimpernel made its appearance, and grew with such 

 speed and luxuriance that they had to be removed to 

 a flower-pot saucer, where they hung over the edge 

 after a very short time in beautiful pink wreaths. 

 Next, a small marsh hypericum came to light and 

 embellished my marsh with its small trails of yellow 

 flowers and red buds. Then a small green flower 

 surprised me one morning by making its appearance 

 in the centre of a patch of spear-shaped leaves that I 

 had supposed to be some sort of grass, a small deep 

 cup-shaped blossom, its corolla five-cleft with a 

 stamen in the curved centre of each division, and a 

 shinmg moist spot in the heart of the cup instead of 

 a pistil. The number of small mosses was most 

 interesting, some of them of exquisite beauty ; they 

 came and went in a constant succession during the 

 early spring^March and April — but there was always 

 some curious plant or other quite unknown to me 

 during the whole summer. 



After a few months the water between the pans 

 became the home of numerous small water insects,, 

 and two sorts of water snails made their appearance. 

 For their benefit and shelter I put a plant of water- 

 cress in one corner of the water, which speedily threw 

 out roots and flourished, making a shelter for the 

 insects. 



I kept the outer pan filled to about an inch under 

 the rim of the inner one, in hot weather it evaporated 

 very quickly, and I was careful to keep the water 

 even with the mark. 



If any of your readers think of setting up a marsh 

 for themselves I am sure they will find it a source of 

 endless interest and pleasure. 



Note. — The campanula mentioned above I was 

 unable to identify ; it was like C, hederacca, but 

 smaller, and the blossoms upright instead of 

 drooping. 



I. G. 



F 



