252 THE GARDENER. [June 



and a full-sized specimen looks quite at home in a tiny thumb-pot, 

 which should be plunged in sand or ashes to the rim, in order to pre- 

 vent extremes of drought. Its broad leaves are farinose below, and 

 barely an inch in length ; the flower - scape rises 2 or 3 inches in 

 height, each crowned by four or five purple flowers, with a con- 

 spicuous iris-like ring around the eye or tube, — hence the popular name 

 of Bird's-eye Primrose. 



Amongst our grandmothers' favourite garden-flowers, few are more 

 distinct or beautiful than the Virginian Lungwort, just now bearing 

 its nodding clusters of delicate sky-blue bells, in a shady corner of a 

 moist peat-bed. In the open border its beauty fades rapidly and its 

 roots soon decay; but in a suitable position like that above indicated, 

 few plants give more satisfaction than Pulmonaria (Mertensia) virginica. 



Anent that gorgeous scarlet Pau Anemone fulgens, I have just been 

 lucky enough to meet with a gentleman who paid some olive-skinned 

 peasants well to dig roots of it by the sackful from among the friable 

 red earth of their vine-fields. Both parties to the bargain were delighted 

 — the peasants with their silver coins, and my friend with his bags of 

 dry withered-looking roots. It is curious that any kind of Anemone 

 once introduced should become scarce in our gardens, since their roots 

 are capable of growing after the most minute subdivision ; and my 

 friend tells me that although the hot southern sun does much by 

 ripening the roots in summer and autumn, yet he believes that the 

 cultivation they receive unwittingly from the peasants, when scratch- 

 ing amongst their vines, does much also, by breaking and so propagat- 

 ing and distributing them into fresh soils ; hence those gorgeous 

 sheets of colour which are the delight of all travellers in the sunny 

 south early in the year. 



Of all popular names given to plants popular or unpopular, I think 

 one of the most ghastly is that of the " Bleeding Nun," as applied to 

 the Canadian Blood -root (Sanguinaria canadensis). In its origi- 

 nal French form it is a trifle less repulsive, but, any way, it is not 

 pretty, or agreeably suggestive, as all good and right plant names 

 should and must ever be. 



Some of the old Daffodils — " one flower on a stalk," as Parkinson 

 describes them — are beautiful enough, but we have now new races of 

 seedling kinds which bear several flowers on a stalk, — so that we 

 have now, in fact, " Polyanthus Daff'odils," as we have long had Poly- 

 anthus Narcissi, and so much more variety is thereby added to our 

 gardens. Some seedlings raised by De Graaff Brothers, of Leyden, 

 from seeds of N. bicolor, are very fine and bold, bearing two flowers 

 on a stalk, and having a very rich and agreeable perfume. 



