328 FLORA HISTORICA. 



as are old, or where there is earth lodged suffi- 

 cient to receive the seeds ; where the plants will 

 come up and resist the cold much better, and 

 continue longer than when sown in the full 

 ground ; and when a few of the plants are esta- 

 blished on the walls, they will shed their seeds, 

 so that they will maintain themselves without any 

 farther care. I have observed -some plants of 

 this kind, which have grown from the joints of 

 a wall, where there has not been the least earth 

 to support them, which have resisted the cold, 

 though they have been greatly exposed to the 

 winds, when most of those in the full ground 

 were killed ; so that these plants are very proper 

 to cover the walls of ruins, where they will have 

 a very good effect." 



From this remark we were induced to scatter 

 the seeds of the Blue Neck-wort with those of 

 the Wall-flower on a broken wall, and on the se- 

 cond year we had as happy a combination of 

 flowers as could be conceived from a mixture of 

 blue and gold. But we must observe that those 

 plants which sprung up just beneath the wall, 

 produced much larger cymes of flowers than such 

 as grew out of the crevices of the stones ; there- 

 fore we recommend some of these plants to be 

 set in a good moist soil, so that if they should 

 decay after flowering, their beauty would be seen 



