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TJic Country Gcnilcinans Magazine 



nisli her with a light but strong walking 

 stick. Hemp when so grown fully equals 

 the finest of the now favoured greenhouse 

 Araliaceae, in the beauty of its divided foliage, 

 and by making successive sowings, its fresh- 

 ness can be retained till ending autumn. 

 The tree or sea mallow (Lavatera arborea) 

 is the only other cottagers' favourite plant 

 we shall here mention, and a noble look- 

 ing one it is, handsome in foliage as well 

 as robust in habit, when seen from 6 to 

 10 feet high, as it frequently is in fishermen's 

 sea-side gardens, luxuriating in the saline 

 blasts which stunt and disfigure almost all 

 other vegetation : a fine protection this for 

 the more delicate plants in sea-side gardens, 

 but being a native, as well as old-fashioned, 

 its elegance and its usefulness are alike un- 

 appreciated. 



In what may be termed tlie higher classes 

 of gardens, no plant has of late years met 

 with more undeserved neglect than that once 

 universal favourite the Campanula pyramidalis, 

 which has few equals, whether grown in the 

 open border, greenhouse, or dwelling-room. 

 The varieties in cultivation are the dark blue, 

 light blue, and white-flowered, and when well 

 grown they should be from nearly 5 to over 

 6 feet in height, well furnished with branches, 

 and clothed over more than two-thirds of 

 their height with bloom. Such plants we 

 lately saw, growing both out and in doors, 

 where a good selection of flowers were cul- 

 tivated in a smallish-sized garden, and were 

 especially struck with the fineness of their 

 effect on the greenhouse stage, where, al- 

 though the weather was extremely hot, they 

 seemed by the coolness of their colours to 

 impart a freshness which contrasted favour- 

 ably witli a far more pretending greenhouse 

 in a neighbouring garden, which contained 

 a goodly show of geraniums and other com- 

 mon summer-flowering greenhouse plants, 

 but where the atmosphere was rendered in- 

 tolerable by the warm colour, and strong 

 odour of more than a dozen specimens of 

 Humea elegans. As a further inducement 

 to cultivate the C. pyramidalis we would 

 strongly recommend it to hybridizers for the 



purpose of procuring hybrids between it and 

 other large shoAvy bell-flowers. Among 

 plants cultivated in circle and panel centres, 

 for the beauty of their finely divided green 

 foliage, none came up to a large herbaceous 

 border plant of the old but rare Astragalus 

 alopecuroides, which, however, was nearly 

 approached by its border associates — A. 

 galegiformis, A. glycyphyllus, Glycyrrhiza 

 lepidota, Liquortia officinalis, Vicia sylvatica, 

 and the silvery-leaved V. argentea. Many 

 lupines, belonging to the Lupinus polyphyllus 

 section, were productive of good effects by 

 thediversity of their colour, and the abundance 

 of their tall upright flowered spikes, but none 

 of this tribe appeared to greater advantage 

 than a fine wall-trained plant of the old L. 

 arboreus, which, on being reintroduced some 

 years since, had a short run of popularity, 

 till it became known that it had put in its 

 appearance under false pretences. Red 

 and White Honesty (Lunaria biennis), those 

 showiest of early spring flowers, which re- 

 semble tall Phloxes, but appear at a very dif- 

 ferent time of the year from them, are now 

 so little known that an amateur lately told us 

 he could not get an ounce of Honesty seed 

 in any London seed-shop. Among large 

 growing grasses, the Spanish reed (Arundo 

 Donax), Panicum latifolium, and P. altissi- 

 mum are now seldom or never employed for 

 imparting an appearance of tropical vegeta- 

 tion by the showy length and width of their 

 foliage, altliough a variegated variety of the 

 first takes prominent position among half- 

 hardy variegated plants. Among annuals, 

 neither the tall and graceful white and red 

 Persicarias, varieties of the Polygonum 

 orientale, nor the Prince's Feather and 

 Love-lies-bleeding, are now allowed any 

 place ; or if admitted they have no longer 

 that careful culture bestowed upon them 

 which rendered them elegant and attrac- 

 tive. As before implied, this list of too 

 little cultivated plants might have been much 

 further extended, but the names here given 

 may induce some to search out for neglected 

 old flowers, Avorthy of receiving renewed atten- 

 tion from cultivators. 



