SOLENANTHUS STYLOSUS. 



sohlanelloeides ! whose soldanellishness, indeed, is only of the most 

 superficial, vague, and general order, not standing for a moment any 

 nsp i tioD nearer than a dozen yards. 



Solenanthus stylosus com close lo Cynoglossum, with 



same needs and habit. It is a hairy Esau of some 12 to 18 inches 

 high, from Central Asia, with dark-purple flowers crowded on the un- 

 curling sprays, which lengthen out afterwards in fruit. It blooms 

 in summer, and is an admissible but not indispensable thing for an 

 open and rather unvalued slope of the garden. 



Solidago indeed gives us a change, from the most elfin of alpines 

 to the coarsest of woodland weeds. None the less, the Golden Rods 

 have their value, in some eyes, for lighting up the darkening glades 

 of the garden in autumn with their lavish sheaves of rather crude 

 yellow flowers. There is an enormous botanical diversity of species, 

 offering Rods of every shape and size, but such of these as are obtain- 

 able will always be found described ; for no catalogue could hope to 

 sell a Solidago without giving clear and detailed promise of the plant's 

 distinct charm among the huge ruck of its relations. S. Shortii is 

 among the best of the tall kinds, growing 5 feet high, with lateral 

 sprays of especially lavish flowers that give ample pyramids of yellow 

 stars, with weeping lateral boughs ; and S. aspera is like a very delicately 

 bowing Spiraea of spraying gold ; but all the species of this large 

 persuasion are meant for the large wild garden or border only, to fill 

 the rough dank places of the wood, in company with the wilder 

 Michaelmas Daisies. For the rock-garden, however, there is a minutely 

 dwarf form of S. Virga aurea, which is really pretty, being the typical 

 common Golden Rod, but reduced to a stature of 3 or 4 inches, whose 

 huddled conglomerations of golden stars in autumn have an almost 

 cheering effect, though hardly alpine. And there are other dwarfs, 

 in S. ?iana, S. pygmaea, and S. arctica ; but these are comparative 

 giants of 8 inches' or so, not lacking on their smaller scale the weedy 

 coarse look of the race ; but S. hrachystachys is neat, and only half a 

 foot high, while S. CutJeri is a very high-alpine from the Rockies, re- 

 peating the neat packed pleasantness of the condensed Virga aurea. 

 It is sometimes called S. alpestris, a name which is also given to that 

 form of S. Virga aurea that is found in Central Europe — not in any way 

 differing for the better from the tall and leafy type, even if it differs 

 at ali : so thai S. alpestris is a name to beware of in lists. 



Sonchua.— Usually the Sowthistles are names before which the 

 gardener shrinks in affright, and orders dynamite ; but S. grandijlorus 

 is a fine stalwart species of the Chatham Islands, growing sturdily 5 feet 

 tall, with portly Bprays of purple flowers : while, in the wild bog, room 



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