TRILLIUM. 



masses beneath the tread, while over the edges of all the hill floats 

 keen the warm and heady vinous scent which is the essential smell 

 of the mountains, and owes its whole force and sweetness to the 

 exhalations of the Mountain-clover in every part. It is curious, 

 indeed, how obstinately utilitarian this family is, and how unfriendly 

 to the merely aesthetic values of life. Even the alpine member of 

 the race declines to be essentially ornamental, and achieves the miracle 

 of being decently dowdy among the brilliant galaxies of the wild 

 hills, where brilliancy is almost a sine qua non. Yet still even this 

 Clover, despising ornament, insists on being useful : that pungent 

 sweetness is the bouquet of many a cherished liqueur ; and the Alpine 

 Clover is no less important in their composition than the Alpine Worm- 

 woods ; while that intoxicating vinous warm sweetness wafted across 

 the upper lawns on the Alps is enough of itself to earn our affection for 

 the plant, when, in some dull day or some low valley or dark London 

 street, the nose suddenly calls up a memory of that nipping haunting 

 smell, and instantly the high bare hills appear in sight, decked in all 

 the sere and austere majesty of the mountain-spring, chill and brown 

 and elastic beneath feet that now in an instant are treading the 

 resilient odorous mattresses of the Trifolium once more, with the 

 wind of the snow coming cold and sweet into one's face, instead of 

 the blasts of skimming motors as one tramps the unyielding flags of 

 Eaton Square. 



Trigonotis radicans is a pretty little Borragineous plant, 

 for cool shady places in moist and spongy stony soil of perfect drainage, 

 where it will form rooting fine mats with wandering stems, and these 

 be generous with slight sprays of blossom like lilac-pink Forget-me-nots. 

 It is a rare novelty from Manchuria. And Japan offers us yet another 

 woodlander in T. Guglielmi, with runnhig stocks and small heart- 

 shaped glossy-green leaves, and tall loose showers of white blossom like 

 little rounded stars. 



Trillium. — For all the Wood-lilies a cool, deep, and very rich 

 woodland soil is wanted, and they detest torrid sunshine as much as 

 they detest drought ; there is no actual need, however, to treat them 

 as bog-plants, their desire being only towards the damp and spongy 

 conditions of rotting vegetable matter in opener places of the deep 

 American woods ; though T. grandiflorum is quite equal to a little 

 extra moisture at the root, and, like all the rest, loves loose old leaf- 

 mould with keenest devotion. Yet they are not impatient or greedy 

 plants, as anyone will realise who has seen the mileage of the Hokkaido, 

 filled with a brake of 2-foot-high bamboo, but with a dense springing 

 undergrowth in the early year of snowy Trillium trefoil-flowers, 



(i.w« 401 ii.— 2 c 



