POLYGONUM. 



over the dark carpet, wondering whether any bee or fly will share their 

 courage, and come by to turn them to a rosy blush with its embraces. 

 As for P. Vayredae, this is a neater species yet, from the Sierras of 

 Spain — the most brilliant of all, a prostrate bushlet of an inch or two, 

 with very dark-green narrow leaves, and butterflies of flaming crimson, 

 with a body of gold ; it answers to the culture that suits the 

 other ; but, being rarer and smaller, should have a more select and 

 prominent place in the sun, with rarer bulbs to come through it, lest it 

 feel their presence an indignity. 



Polygonatum. — The Solomon's Seals do not need description, 

 and the times and seasons of their opulent arching sprays and small 

 hanging clusters of greeny-white bells are no less well known than 

 the perfectly ordinary treatment in any ordinary soil that will cause 

 them to flourish and spread. Of larger sorts are P. biflorum, P. 

 giganteum, P. midtiflorum, P. japonicum (white and pink in the bell), 

 P. oppositifolium (pinkish), P. vulgare, and tall handsome strange 

 P. verticillatum with the narrow leaves in whorls round the stem, a 

 plant of acute rarity in England and Scotland, but not by any means 

 uncommon in the Alpine woods (on the Mont Cenis ir abounds in the 

 gypsum-ghylls). Of smaller and choicer species none could be prettier 

 than our own P. officinale, that fills the copses under the limestone 

 cliffs in the Yorkshire highlands, and shares the deep cracks of the 

 level scar-limestone pavement higher up with Actaea and Lily of the 

 valley ; it is a neat thing, about 8 inches high, and especially stiff- 

 necked. Its solid, pale-green leaflets, folded back in pairs, like the 

 wings of so many butterflies, seem to be settling on a stem strained 

 backwards almost to the point of breaking its spine, the better to 

 hang out from each pair the couple of large, whitish -green bells in 

 which the plant rejoices so openly. Of different habit is little P. roseum 

 from the Altai, with sword-pointed leaves of verticillate persuasion, 

 and clusters of smaller rosy-lilac flowers ; with another in the same 

 line, P. gramini folium from the Himalaya, of the same span-high 

 stature, but with even narrower, more crowded foliage, and purplish 

 bells. These two, being rare, should have a choice place in deep 

 woodland soil in the fringe of woodland, among the Cypripediums, 

 but no such consideration is necessary for the rest. 



Polygonum. — The rock-garden is no place for the large knot- 

 weeds, gigantic tropical plants for the wilderness only ; by the water- 

 side, however, the 3-foot bushes of P. alpinum or P. polystachyon 

 (falsely called P. oxyphyllum or P. amplexicaule), beset with clouds 

 or spires of white or pink in high summer, produce a fine effect and 

 ransom the leanness of the plants' many upstanding shoots ; while 



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