THE WATER-GARDEN 269 
the tropical growth of gigantea and the kindred of 
gigantea, spuria Monniert and the rest. 
Another small hint; it is no bad thing to make your 
edging of uneven height—that is, especially, to build it 
up, at one point, if possible, to a bulk of rock-work, 
impending immediately over the water. And, for such a 
high point most delightful is the common Great Solomon’s 
Seal, whose tall, indescribable majesty is thus shown to 
the very best advantage. Stately is the Great Solomon’s 
Seal always, but most particularly in autumn, and, if you 
give it such a lofty lonely place it will return you a picture 
of pure wan gold in late autumn, magically soft and 
beautiful, the clearest softest note of all amid the russets, 
saffrons, and sere browns of those last dreadful days. 
On a still, chill autumn afternoon, amid the bronze and 
purple of dead fern fronds, the withered seed-vessels 
of Iris, the dry brown plumes of Spiraea, tower the clean 
gold croziers of the Polygonatum, mirrored, pale and clear, 
in the brown sad water, choked already with wreckage of 
leaves, blue with ghostly reflections of the sky. And 
those arched sprays of pure yellow seem the very incar- 
nation of autumn, uncomplaining, phantasmal, motion- 
less, unutterably meek and tragic. 
Along the outer edge of the bog belt, under your eye 
as you stroll round, you will, if it be wide enough, have 
all the choice little bog plants for which you have room 
—Primulas, Gentians, small Saxifrages, Alpine Butter- 
cups, and so forth. But, seeing that the small bog 
plants are so small, and the large bog plants so very 
large, not to say rampageous, it is far best to give up a 
section of the belt entirely to little things, rather than 
try to grow them all round under the shadow of larger 
neighbours. Middle-sized robust things that will be useful 
all round, on the outer edge of tall giants such as Iris 
Monnieri, are Gentiana asclepiadea, all the Globe-flowers 
