SAPONARIA. 



tears of blood if hurt, and refuses to be comforted) calls up here and 

 there one lovely blue-grey leaf, daintily lobed and scalloped, silvery- 

 smooth beneath, which emerges modestly folded-up on a stem of an 

 inch or two, and gradually, as it develops, is surpassed by the flower- 

 stalk on which opens a frail wide blossom of transparent opalescent 

 white, like the ghost of a bland Anemone that died of starvation. 

 There is no other Sanguinaria, but the species varies widely, and 

 nurseries offer a form they call S. c. grandiflora. 



Sanguisorba.— The Poor Man's Pepper of our fields asks no ad- 

 mittance to our gardens, but 8. canadensis is superb for the water- 

 side in rich soil, with elaborate masses of foliage, and the long leaves 

 delicately made up of toothed oval green leaflets, spaced at intervals 

 down each leaf-stalk ; and then come tall upstanding spikes of close 

 fluffy flowers in long white tails like those of a Cimicifuga, in the 

 latest hours of summer, standing 2 yards high or little less. 8. tenui- 

 folia has the pinkish flower-head much shorter, and thereby loses 

 merit, becoming like our own 8. officinalis on a big scale. And there 

 are various other species, none calling for note except the very rare 

 and rather splendid S. Vallistellinae, which is only to be seen in the 

 upper meadows of the Valtelline, as, for instance, about Bormio — a 

 stately plant 2 feet high, with ample glaucous-blue foliage, and long 

 furry tails of sweet-scented creamy-white. All these are quite easy 

 and rampageous in cool rich soil, and can be divided at will. Among 

 dimmer cousins are S. sitchensis, S. carnea, 8. alpina, &c. 



Santolina. — None of these need ever be thought of for their 

 flowers, which are no more than rayless yellow pompons ; but they are 

 tiny little composite bushes, with fine and very aromatic neat foliage, 

 and so employable in hot dry and worthless places, to be kept in 

 shape when they grow leggy with an annual cutting-back like 

 Helianthemum. Their various names need no further specification ; 

 catalogues may offer any they choose, but the French Lavender 

 remains their best type. But many of the Anthemids are also rayless, 

 and have got mixed, rayless or no, with Santolina; this should be 

 remembered, and, especially, that S. alpina means merely Anthemis 

 montana, q.v. 



Saponaria has lately had a distinguished recruit ; but, with 

 that one exception, the Soapworts are all easy and pleasant to grow, 

 enjoying light loam in an open place. All of them bloom in early 

 summer, and all are easily to be raised from seed and multiplied by 

 cuttings. 



S. bellidifolia is a species of Eastern Europe, Greece, &c. a rare 



plant and near akin to 8. htiea, but taller in the growth, attaining some- 



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