SPHAERALCEA MDNROANA. 



might well be made for the stately and extremely rare native, S. paJus- 

 tris, of much the same stature and succulence, with ample heads of 

 yellow in late summer, and rich handsome foliage like the double- 

 barbed blade of a narrow spear-head. It makes a fine associate for its 

 no less sumptuous and no less rare cousin, the Bog Rag-wort, Senecio 

 paluster (S. paludosus is not so tall, and only an annual or biennial), 

 in wild and marshy places among flags and reeds and bulrushes. Spain, 

 meanwhile, sends us a wholly different thing hi S.spinosus. with, a variety 

 often sent out as Acanthosonchus cervicornis. Under these sonorous 

 syllables cowers a tight and tiny mass of thorns about 3 or 4 inches high 

 at the most, very branching and woody-stemmed, with a few narrow 

 toothy green leaves springing from the base, and spines and scales 

 making up the rest of the pile, which is beset with little yellow flowers 

 like those of Lactuca muralis. As its habit suggests, this is a plant of 

 the hottest, driest, and stoniest places on the coasts of Granada, 

 Africa, and Egypt. — typical desert -species, — and in England should not 

 be trusted to endure for too long in one stay, even though not nearly 

 so iniffy, exacting, or tender as its aspect and capricious carping look 

 of unfriendliness would lend one to expect. It blooms quietly and per- 

 sistently, too, all the summer, and can be quite readily increased by 

 division and cuttings from the base ; so that, altogether, there might 

 easily be unworthier candidates for admission to sunny stony slopes 

 or moraines in the rock-garden. 



Soyeria hyoseridifolia=Crepis tergloviensis. 



Sparaxis pendula (and var. pulcherrima) = Dierama pen- 

 dulum, q.v. 



Sparganium. — These are water plants of ramping habit and broad 

 soft foliage like a lush ample grass, and strange round fluffy heads of 

 green flower clustered on stems of various heights in summer. They 

 niake no show, but are useful for filling shallow waters and edges of 

 marsh ; S. affine and S. minimum have floating stems, and are smaller 

 than the rest, which are usuallj' a foot or two in height, rapidly spread- 

 ing into invasive flaccid tangles. 



Spathyema f oetidum = Symplocarpus foetidus. 



Speirantha convallarioeides is a small Chinese woodlander. 

 with creeping rhizomes, and stems of 6 inches, and leaves like those of 

 a little Lily of the Valley ; and then erect bunches of twenty or thirty 

 scentless little white flowers. It should have the shad}' rich treat- 

 ment of the Valley-lily thai it so resembles in look and habit. 



Sphaeralcea Munroana, sometimes also called Malvastrum 

 Munroanum, is a useful but rank Malvad, floundering or upstanding, 

 With stems of a yard or so, abounding in grey-haired ivy-shaped leaves, 



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