i88i.] NOTES. 439 



are ready to do so as soon as fresh compost is added to them. Of 

 Lilies not generally met with even in good gardens there are one 

 or two worthy of especial note. L. Browni is especially beautiful with 

 its purple-backed tube and silvery-white lining. L. martagon (Dal- 

 maticum) catani — a purple-black- flowered Martagon with a stem 

 seven feet in height, and bearing a spire of twenty to thirty turn- 

 cap flowers — is, when well established, one of the finest of all good 

 Lilies. 



Of all annuals, the biggest and brightest, the largest-flowered and 

 the stateliest, the tallest and the most easily grown, is the Common 

 Sunflower and its numerous varieties. Just now, too, it is most fashion- 

 able. Whether 'tis its grace of slender stem, or its rich Daff'odil-like 

 yellowness of hue, which has most contributed to this, I know not. 

 What I do know is, that the Oscar Wilds and Mrs Cimabue Brownes 

 of society have made an especial protege of it, and artistic people gen- 

 erally are now mad after its big blossoms, which they are busily try- 

 ing to represent in all sorts of material, plastic and textile. They are 

 now at this moment, and long have been, a great feature in our dear 

 old garden. They tower aloft over Phloxes and Bell-flowers, but not 

 above the tops of 14-feet-high old grey walls, which aff'ord a pleasing 

 background for the massive leaves and gold-fringed discs as they 

 glisten and wave in the autumnal sunshine. Formerly a common 

 flower beside honeysuckled cottage-windows, it is now rarely seen in 

 even the best of gardens. Birket Foster often represents it along 

 with happy groups of ruddy-cheeked children; and now we look to the 

 Frank Miles and Alfred Parsons of our time to show on canvas the 

 glory of the great gold-rayed Sunflower, as now so lovely in our 

 gardens. 



Now is a good time to insert cuttings of Pentstemons, Pansies, Veroni- 

 cas, Phloxes, and other half-hardy flowers for next spring and summer 

 blooming. Seeds of many good strains of Canterbury Bells, Sweet- 

 Williams, Delphiniums, &c., will also now be ripe, and should be 

 gathered, and either sown at once in boxes in a cold frame, or pre- 

 served in packets until next spring. 



Of choice bulbs for present planting, there are one or two of especial 

 interest, perfectly hardy at Dublin, and worth making note of. Amaryl- 

 lis formosissima does well planted on a rubble bottom near a south 

 or south-east wall. Hyacinthus candicans planted deeply in very 

 light soil (leaf-mould and sand is best) grows well, and afl'ords fine 

 spikes. Tiger-flowers are gorgeous, although now seldom seen. We 

 find they succeed much better treated as hardy bulbs by planting 

 in October, than when planted in spring after being stored in a shed 

 all the winter. They, like Belladonna Lilies and the Jacobean Lily 



