184 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
or unfriendlinesses of any kind. ‘The toothed, pointed 
leaves are smooth, of a very dark grey, clothed with white 
tomentum on the reverse. ‘The stems, almost bare, are 
tall and few-flowered, also grey with down. The big 
fluffy blossoms are of purplish rose, and dowered with 
a faint, intoxicating scent, which I earned a prophetic re- 
putation for eccentricity by loving even in the remote days 
of my childhood. In one form of Carduus heterophyllus, 
too, the leaves are gashed and slashed into so handsome 
a pattern that they come to recall the convention of the 
Acanthus. Actuated, then, by admiration and old love, 
I introduced the Melancholy Thistle from the woods 
above the Lake to the bog in the Old Garden. Immedi- 
ately, however, the drooping creature cheered up in the 
most dreadful and depressing way. It grew and it grew 
and it grew, it spread and it spread and it spread; ever 
since I have been waging vain war with the invader, 
spudding it up to-day in one place only to find it burgeon- 
ing anew from another to-morrow. My combat is with 
a Lernean Hydra; the plant runs underground, and 
makes two shoots, it seems to me, for each one that I 
cut off. But still I love the Melancholy Thistle, wicked, 
fascinating creature, which is not content with the ini- 
quity of ramping insatiably underground, but must needs 
also fill the air, all summer through, with flying silver 
clouds of seed. Just such a wickedness characterises, 
too, as I have said, those other wicked applicants for 
admission to our gardens, Kpilobiun angustifolium and 
Epilobium hirsutum. Yet though their guilt is no worse 
than the Thistle’s, I frankly detest the Epilobiums, 
and warn you all yet again and again, never to be 
seduced by their pleasant beauty into giving them so 
much as an inch. For, in that case, be assured that 
they will not only claim, but occupy, not one, but 
scores of ells; and by their monstrous fecundity 
