THE GREATER BOG-PLANTS 177 
existence, of Spiraea digitata. For, horticulturally de- 
scribed, it is simply a minute dwarfed form of Spiraea 
palmata—a tiny brilliant version of a_ big brilliant 
original which does not, or should not, exceed three or 
four inches in height, although the spreading plume of 
its blossom is no less large and no less rosy than that 
which crowns the leafy three-foot stem of palmata itself. 
‘Should not, say I, though, in my uncertainty. For 
digitata is suspiciously liable to variation, and though I 
have many plants that remain perfectly true, trusty and 
tiny from year to year, producing tinies too from seed, 
yet again I have had Digitatas that waxed fat and kicked 
like Jeshurun, and swelled into ordinary stunted speci- 
mens of palmata. ‘This leaves me doubtful whether 
digitata, permanent and perennial though its habit may 
generally be, is not perhaps a local, possibly an Alpine 
variety of paimata, which, in ninety-nine cases out of a 
hundred, remains distinct, but not in the hundredth that 
constitutes a true species. In any case digitata is one Of 
the loveliest things on the rock-work, and delights one 
even further by bearing its wide rosy flower-heads all 
through summer and autumn, far on into the dark days 
of early winter, when there is nothing left but the mud- 
flecked, slug-nibbled cups of Colchicum, repellent in their 
acrid and poisonous-looking magenta. Spiraea digitata, 
always remaining a dwarf, restricts itself permanently to 
a single crown, never runs about nor grows weedy, but 
illumines its select corner from year to year with its crest 
of rosy foam, and makes seed in just sufficient quantity to 
give you always a few babies, though never as many as 
you would like to have of so willing, persistent, and 
beautiful a fairy. 
A little while ago I mentioned Senecio clivorum. To 
Senecio clivorum I now return. Senecios they are called 
by botanists, ‘ but liberal gardeners give a grosser name.’ 
M 
