144 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
out with me after firmly refusing to flower through many 
years of luxuriant growth. I first collected its big heads 
of sapphire trumpets in a copse near Cannes, and in many 
a cool, shady glen of Liguria will you come unexpectedly 
on its glory of blue. To my surprise, the American 
yellow Lithospermums have been a moderate success 
with me—multiflorum, canescens, longiflorum, and hirtwm 
making herbaceous, sturdy little bushes, with abundance 
of golden blossoms, in any light, sunny place. Add to 
these the lovely common Prophet-flower, with its black- 
spotted, canary-yellow blooms like big cowslips, pro- 
duced perpetually—and the Lithospermums, with their 
cousins, do not do so badly by me after all;—and Arnebia 
echioeides is one of the most brilliant of easy beauties for 
either border or rock-work, in any rich soil, well-drained. 
The Onosmas are opulent hairy creatures, with white, 
golden, or crimson bugles, that hang from the uncurling, 
crozier-like spikes. ‘They are all Southerners, peering 
down from the ruins of Byzantine castles or Saracenic 
fortifications, and, it stands to reason, hairiness and 
habitat considered, are quite unsuited to a cool, wet 
climate. However, the best of all, the well-known 
Golden Drop, Onosma tauricum, is very satisfactory here, 
and even more so, of course, in gardens that rejoice in a 
drier, colder winter. Glorious, indeed, is a mass of this 
all through the summer, with up-curling spikes thick 
hung with long drops of pure amber. Similar is the 
white form, but more delicate; as also is rare Onosma 
albo-roseum, whose bells are of white and pink—a lovely, 
tender plant. Of Onosma Thurberi and O. Thompsoni I 
speak doubtfully. I flowered O. Thurberi last year and 
found it a fraud—a biennial, with a stout, podgy spike, 
set with dull little red flowers. 
Of the remaining Borages the true Lungworts never 
move me to much enthusiasm. The Spotted Dog or 
