PERENNIALS 



of a border than Boconia cordata. The 

 leaves, immense in size and beautifully in- 

 dented, are rather a bluish-green in color, 

 and each stalk bears a plume of feathery 

 white blossoms, often eighteen inches long. 

 The first year, this plant may not be taller 

 than three or four feet, but seen when two 

 or three years old, no gardener will be with- 

 out it. The roots can be separated and it 

 can be grown easily from seed. 



Last September I made acquaintance at 

 Botzen, in the Austrian Tyrol, with a plant 

 of exceeding beauty. Arriving late one 

 warm afternoon after a tiresome journey, 

 we came into the cool, shaded, white marble 

 hall of the hotel, and on either side of the 

 foot of a fine stairway, rising from a bank 

 of Maidenhair fern with a background of 

 Palms, was a new plant. Slender stalks, 

 quite six feet high, whose entire length was 

 covered either with white or palest blue bell- 

 like flowers, rose against the green of the 

 palms. I began to ask questions in my 

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