LOBELIA. 
New Year, may have value as a suggestion, tantalising us with such 
brief hints of what splendours it was, more rich than all Rome’s purples, 
that the sad and lonely old Emperor went away to contemplate in 
his rock-bound seclusion of Capri. ; 
L. Zahni may not, however, prove so hopeless, though in the same 
style of charm. For this makes just the same bushes of Rosemary 
as the last, in the highest rocks of Laconia, which should surely guar- 
antee a Spartan temperament. It is a perfectly dense branching little 
bush, with the narrow leaves bright and smooth above, but felted with 
a grey coat beneath. Stemless at the end of the shoots sit clusters of 
large blossoms in the mosi brilliant and celestial blue. 
L. Zollingeri, from the nearer East, has the habit of L. purpureo- 
coeruleum, rampant with long radicant sprays, but the 9-inch stems 
that arise from the crown carry starrier wide blooms of a much lightcr 
blue and inferior merit. 
Lloydia serotina is a small and most dainty little bulb, with 
thread-like stems and leaves, of 2 or 3 inches, and a dim paper-white 
cup streaked outside with darkness, which may be seen here and 
there abundant in the alpine turf, and here and there also not less 
abundant in the high grass of certain Welsh mountains. In culture 
it is not very easy, and must have soil of peaty grit in a cool corner, 
damp but well-drained. It would be well to use it in the choice 
gentian-bed. See Appendix for Llcydia alpina. 
Lobelia is often confused with Pratia, a confusion that need never 
recur when it is remembered that Pratia has a capsule, while Lobelia 
has a berry. Of the larger sorts the garden in August and September 
is grateful to the vehement scarlet of L. cardinalis, the clear rich 
blues and purples of LL. syphilitica, Kalmii, kamtchatica, and specially 
beautiful DL. amoena (specially hardy too) with one-sided spires of 
long and lovely blue flowers on stems of a foot or two ; to say nothing 
of the many new intermediates raised in gardens, in the most satisfying 
shades of rose and violet, all to be made happy in the bog garden or 
at the water’s edge, in soil that is very rich and deepanddamp. Damp, 
indeed, seems the prescription for all Lobelias, and our own china-blue 
L. Dorimanna keeps its fat fleshy tufts actually below the water, and 
raises its head clear through a foot or more. But more ordinary 
conditions of open soil mixed with peat will suit the new L. taliensis, 
a beautiful blue-flowered dwarf species, no less than the most valuable 
of all (at present) for the rock-garden, lovely L. linnaeoeides, which 
indeed is like a Linnaea, or some New Zealand ELpilobium, sheeting 
the bank in wandering prostrate shoots beset with small round pairs 
of leaves, metallically dark in tone, from which in August spring 
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