8 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
background to Paconia Moutan. Here the European 
Tree-Paeonies, and even the Orientals, may thrive and be 
glorious; but they will be far more congruous and beau- 
tiful against a mossy rock or some quiet curtain of leaves. 
For green (I wish this were as generally realised as it is 
generally ignored) is a far more enhancing background 
than glare. Some of the commoner Michaelmas Daisies, 
leaden, dull, and utterly boring in the border, become 
perfectly beautiful, lucent, clear, and purely blue when 
planted out in the grass. And beyond this, the only 
requirement of the 'Tree-Paeony is repeated heavy feeding 
with the richest of manure—incongruous as such treat- 
ment may seem for such sylph-sounding creatures as 
Hope of Glory, Moonfoam, Clouds at Dawn, Fire-F lash, 
Leaping Lion, Bridal Dream. 
Another shrub for the big rock-garden whose treat- 
ment I believe, on no authority of mine, to be generally 
mistaken, is the great Californian 'Tree-Poppy, not alto- 
gether unlike Paeonia Moutan, white-flowered,on a smaller, 
frailer, freer scale of flower, and a larger, lusher scale of 
growth. Romneya Coulteri is usually cultivated under a 
wall. It is so that I have always grown it, with the 
most persistent disappointment. very year it came up 
ranker and more rank, and, in late summer, made abun- 
dance of buds, which developed sporadically into flower 
one at a time, producing no effect, and passing away 
frustrate, before the advance of autumn frosts. Nothing 
I could do seemed of any avail. I protected the old 
wood, and I cut it off—with equal futility. Lomneya 
Coulteri was written down a failure. It was only last 
winter, when the key was given me, that I remembered 
my first impression of the plant as a rounded, open- 
ground bush in Mr. Woodall’s garden at Scarborough, 
white with its huge filmy blossoms from crown to base. 
And now information received leads me to understand 
