WAHLENBERGIA. 



both sides, and more or less faintly toothed at the edge, narrow and 

 more or less pointed, arranged quite stemless in a loose rosette at the 

 base. The perfectly smooth and naked flower-stems are delicate and 

 slender, rising some 3 or 4 inches, or much less, from the tufts, bear- 

 ing each one dainty little bell-shaped flower of bright light blue. It 

 should have the treatment of the W. albomarginata which so often 

 shares or usurps its name in gardens. It is a species of Tasmania. 



W. vincaeflora, Decaisne. — This came into cultivation through suc- 

 cessive years in a cloud of false names and notes of exclamation. 

 It is, though perennial, a thing of curiously lush and annual look ; 

 from a thin base sending up such a profusion of rather lanky stems, 

 about a foot or 18 inches high, that in summer the whole becomes a 

 tossing bush of large cup-shaped flowers of peculiarly clear light blue, 

 which would be even more acceptable than they are brilliant if only 

 they did not have so flimsy an air, as if the garden were being 

 fraudulently furnished with annuals. Catalogues still at times call it 

 V. gracilis, and offer various named forms in which the gawkiness of 

 habit is sometimes wholesomely corrected, as in the rather more com- 

 pact and very much more expensive, but not otherwise in the least 

 degree different W . v. minor. The genuine variety, W. v. littoralis, 

 differs only in having all the leaves uniformly narrower, and always 

 in opposite pairs instead of sometimes alternate. And all these will 

 thrive for the time in light, open soil, and flower in a profuse blaze 

 of light -blue beauty through the later summer ; their description 

 insists on their perennial nature ; but in the garden their loose 

 ephemeral habit, and mangy base make it extremely hard to believe 

 in. Nor do they appear often to seed. So here ends the list of 

 Australasian perennials in this race. 



W. hederacea calls us high into the moors and marshes of England 

 and Wales, where it trails its delicate length, and unfolds tiny, ivy -like 

 leaves of bright green, and then, throughout the summer, on thread- 

 fine stems, hangs forth such a profusion of dainty clear-blue bells that 

 all the marsh goes softly blue. In the garden W. hederacea must not 

 be planted by itself, or else it proves rather hard to establish. A moist 

 place should be chosen, by stream-side or pool, where sedges and 

 grasses are already at home. Then among these (they should not, 

 obviously, be of the coarsest) the Wahlenbergia should be inserted, so 

 that it may twine and clamber and faint in coils among the herbage 

 as it does on its own hills, and feel itself in a marish jungle of the 

 mountains, where it may wander in and out secure, and throw up 

 those delicious gentle bells in a continuous humble display of colour. 



We come now to the Wahlenbergias of the Dalmatian district — 



469 



