SALVIA. 



come shooting from below, but valuable no less in the profusion of 

 white stars with which their carpet is set in summer. They are, in 

 effect, quite dwarf mat-forming Arenarias. Of these, then, 8. Boydi, 

 S. Linnaei, 8. bryoeides, and 8. procumbens all have the merits of the 

 family, while the best known is S. subulata, which is often seen in 

 catalogues as Armaria caespitosa, when it is not called Spergula 

 pilifcra, and Sagina acicularis. This makes a notably charming 

 fuzz-floor of green (or of yellow in the case of the aurea form), sprinkled 

 all the summer through with white stars on dainty fine stems of an 

 inch or so. S. Linnaei is dwarf er, with less needly little leaves, but no 

 less brilliant in the green, and rather larger in the blossom ; it is some- 

 times offered as 8. saxatilis. 



Sagittaria. — The Arrowroots are all delightful for shallow waters, 

 where they bloom on and off throughout the summer. It is sad that 

 one of the finest of the race, 8. monievidiensis, is not safely hardy here. 

 8. latifolia is North American, taller than our own 8. sagittifolia, 

 but thriving no less readily in 5 or 6 inches of water, in rich mud, 

 with wider leaves and larger flowers ; there is a double form of 

 S. sagittifolia, too, a foot or 2 feet high, like its parent, and often 

 quite falsely sold as 8. japonica or S. jap. fl. pi., when it is not sent 

 out under the name of 8. sinensis, which ought to be a yard-high 

 plant with specially handsome large white flowers, and leaves that are 

 not barbed arrow-heads as hi the others, but simply long lances. 



Salix. — In the rock-garden it is not possible to do without rock- 

 hugging 8. retusa, with its even smaller-leaved variety S. serpyllifolia, 

 that both make dense wide carpets, or hanging tight cataracts down 

 the face of the rocks, with long elastic branches, set with wee shining 

 leaves, close-packed hi myriads, and in early summer powdered with 

 the multitudinous fine gold of the microscopic flowers. Both 

 these will grow almost anywhere, and from the merest fragment ; as 

 has been sadly found by many, when the choice bishopric of some 

 dead alpine Gentian has been occupied, and the whole bank soon swept, 

 by some niinute fragment of willow that had been lurking in the tuft. 

 Far less important than these, but admissible, are the egg-leaved silky 

 creepers, S. reticulata and 8. herbacea, but these have not the gloss, 

 the mmute and crowded leafage that give the first two their inimitable 

 charm and sets them quite outside the race of alpine willows, of which 

 there are very many more, though none that so insist on admittance 

 to the garden. 



Salvia. — The rock-garden is hardly a place for these, and the 

 family is so full of leafy weeds that, but for many brilliant exceptions, 

 one might say that no other garden was either. However, though 



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