CONVOLVULUS. 
Potato has intermarried with Ramondia Nataliae. From such a 
station, indeed, hardiness need not be expected, but Conandron climbs 
high into the Alps, and up behind the great Regent’s tomb at Nikko 
may be seen clothing the rocks (though in much finer dwarfer sturdier 
form) far up on the slopes of Nyo-ho-San and Nantai-San the Holy. 
Probably pieces from such elevations would prove more resistent 
than the fattened Sybarites of sea-level; the tuber should anyhow be 
tucked into a cool, damp and lightless place on the rock-work—deep 
shade often being prescribed, while certainly the plant as often has 
no antipathy in nature to the fullest sun (and that the sun of Japan) 
—in such a position that it cannot be worried by drought in summer 
or wet in winter, or be too roughly visited, perhaps, by the perilous 
fingers of the frost. It is usually sent out in small divided fragments, 
but if larger pieces, less weakened by mutilation, could be obtained, 
probably there would be less trouble about re-establishing a thing 
so beautiful that no repetition of effort is too much. In face of such 
foliage it would be absurd to say that damp is the enemy; yet it 
always has its centre of growth in a small tight crevice, and from 
thence sends out its fat britile rhizomes up and down over the bare 
and sterile face of the rock. In Japan it is the [wa-Tabako—the 
Rock Tobacco—on account of its leaves, which, though crisp and 
crinkly and very glossy, have some faint resemblance to the amplitude 
of a Nicotiana’s. 
Convallaria maialis.—The Lily of the valley is the worst of all 
delicious weeds where it thrives, and must never be admitted near a 
choice place, Fortin’s variety preserves in the open garden much of its 
special size and nobility of bell; while the rosy-lilac form is by no 
means to be despised when it has formed a wide and thick-set colony. 
Convolvulus.—tThese are always plants of the South, in warm 
and rocky places, never straying into the cool alpine damps of the 
North. Therefore it is that we. still lack some of the most ravishing 
delights our rock-gardens could have. And when at last they have 
successfully been wooed in our direction, let all such be planted in 
hot and well-drained chinks, or in sunny moraine, or in light and stony 
soil where drought can be their friend, and winter not so much their 
enemy. They are summer-bloomers all; and their propagation is by 
seed or most careful cuttings inserted in sand in August. See 
Appendix. 
C. althaeoeides is the only, or almost the only, trailer to admit—a 
pretty straggling thing, with finely-divided foliage, and flowers of 
more or less brilliant deep pink, sometimes amaranthine. It is not 
very hardy or satisfactory in the North, but is fitted for full sun and 
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