POLYGONUM. 



stalks that vary between half an inch and an inch and a half, and end 

 in spikes of white or pink flowers, drooping on the stem in their dense 

 mass. It is a high-alpine, from some 14,000 or 15,000 feet in the 

 Hima'aya. 



P. spliaerostachyon is a species for which high prices are asked, and 

 to which high praise is given. I can understand neither the one nor 

 the other. In my eye the plant is coarse and quite unworthy of pains, 

 and not particularly worthy of cultivation at all. It forms a tuft of 

 leaves like those of P. Bistorta, stalked, long, and narrow, and from 

 among these sends up the characteristic spike of its section, on bare 

 stems. The flowers, it is fair to say, are of brilliant pink and borne 

 in autumn, but the stems are 10 inches or a foot high, and there is an 

 utter lack of elegance or breeding about its look. And it is even a liar 

 in its name, for the blossoms are not worn in a ball, but in the usual 

 stodgy oval tail-tip, the whole plant having the weedy lushness with 

 which the charm of so many Knotweeds, such as it is, is tainted. 

 Its one value (I am tempted to believe) is its rarity, which is only 

 owing to the fact that it furnishes no seed and makes no runners, 

 sitting tight in a clump which the pious have too much feeling to 

 divide. It is a Himalayan species from elevations between 11,000 and 

 13,000 feet. 



P. vaccini folium, however, not only escapes the charge of coarse- 

 ness to which this race is open, but escapes it so handsomely as to be 

 one of the loveliest and most refined treasures in which the garden 

 rejoices. All the year it is lovely, in any sunny place in good soil, 

 making close carpets and cataracts over the edge of the rocks, with 

 its long, woody trailers, set with narrow, glossy, evergreen little leaves 

 of the heartiest and most immortal appearance ; and then, in autumn, 

 there breaks up, on stems of 2 or 3 inches, so unbelievable a profusion 

 of little rose-pink spikes that the ground and the green below are 

 almost hidden from view ; and when in their midst tower up also 

 the violet wide goblets of Crocus pulchdlus or C. speciosus Aitchisoni 

 among the crowded pink spires, the sight is one to make even the 

 most sedate give tongue. This beauty requires careful propagation 

 by cuttings, and should not be put in too exposed a position in the 

 garden's battlefield, as, though perfectly hardy, it repays a sheltered 

 slope or ledge, and insists on fullest sunshine if it is to repay you 

 with its fullest generosity of flower. 



P. viviparum is a meek thing, wholly different from all the rest, 

 not always of very long life, but often appearing in clumps of other 

 things collected abroad, which it benefits rather than harms with the 

 companionship of its neat tuft of long, dark, little leaves rolled over 



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