LlNUM. 



THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. LIRIODENDRON. 



is excellent for a moist rock garden, 

 growing rapidly, and forming a charm- 

 ing fringe to groups of small alpine 

 shrubs, on cool parts of the rock gar- 

 den. N. Europe, Asia, and America ; 

 also Scottish Mountains. 



LINUM (Flax). A very interesting 

 group of plants, too often neglected in 

 gardens, though remarkable for beauty 

 of colour, and including one of the 

 most useful plants that gives us linen 

 and also the best paper for the books 

 meant to last. 



L. CAMPANULATUM (Yellow Herbaceous 

 Flax). A perennial with yellow flowers 

 on stems 12 to 18 inches high, distinct and 

 worthy of a place. A native of the south 

 of Europe, it flowers in summer and 

 flourishes freely in dry soil on the warm 

 sides of banks or rock gardens. Similar 

 to it is L. flavuwi, or tauricum, also a hand- 

 some and hardy plant, with yellow flowers ; 

 but L. arboreum, a shrubby kind, also 

 with yellow flowers, is not hardy in all 

 districts, though where it thrives it is a 

 pretty little evergreen bush for the rock 

 garden. 



L. GRANDIFLORUM (Red Flax) is a showy 

 hardy annual from Algeria, with deep red 

 blossoms. By successive sowings it may 

 be had in bloom from May till October. 

 Seed sown in autumn will give plants for 

 spring-blooming, and sowings made from 

 March to June will yield a display through 

 the summer and autumn. If protected 

 from frost the plant is perennial. 



L. MONOGYNUM (New Zealand Flax). 

 A beautiful kind with large pure white 

 blossoms blooming in summer. It grows 

 about i feet high in good light soil, and 

 its neat and slender habit renders it 

 particularly pleasing for the borders of 

 the rock garden or for pot-culture. In- 

 creased by seed or division ; it is hardy in 

 the more temperate parts of England, but 

 in the colder districts is said to require 

 some protection. L. candidissimum is a 

 finer and hardier variety. Both are 

 natives of New Zealand. 



L. NARBONNENSE (Narbonne Flax). A 

 beautiful kind, bearing during summer 

 many large light sky-blue flowers, with 

 violet veins, growing best on rich light 

 soils, and is a fine plant for borders, or for 

 the lower flanks of the rock garden, form- 

 ing lovely blue masses 15 to 20 inches 

 high. S. Europe. 



Other similar blue-flowered kinds are 

 L. perenne, usitatissimum, alpinum, sibiri- 

 cum, alpicola, collinum, and austriacum ; 

 all are hardy European species, and make 

 pretty border or rock garden plants. The 

 white and rose varieties of L. perenne are 

 pretty. 



L. SALSOLOIDES (White Rock Flax). 

 Dwarf half-shrubby species, essentially a 

 rock garden plant ; its flowers, white with 



a purplish eye. In the rock garden, in 

 a well-exposed sunny nook, the plant is 

 hardy, and trails over stones, flowering 

 abundantly. It produces seeds rarely, so 

 that it must be increased by cuttings of 

 the short shoots taken off about mid- 

 summer ; these will strike freely, and 

 make vigorous plants when potted off in 

 the following spring. L. s. nanum is a 

 rare dwarf form studded with large pinky- 

 white flowers. An excellent rock garden 

 plant. Mountains of Europe. L. vis- 

 cosum, with pink flowers, is a closely allied 

 plant not so pretty. 



The Common Flax, which gives us the 

 linen fibre, is a pretty annual plant worth 

 a place for its beauty among annual 

 flowers. 



L. USITATISSIMUM (The True Flax). A 

 beautiful annual. I have oft thought it 

 worthy a place even in the flower-beds. 

 Sown in mid- April, it flowers long through 

 the summer, but is a hungry feeder that 

 few will place for. 



LIPPIA. L. nodiflora is a dwarf 

 perennial creeper bearing in summer 

 heads of pretty pink blooms. It grows 

 in any situation or soil, and is a capital 

 plant for quickly covering bare spaces 

 in the rock garden where choicer 

 subjects will not thrive. 



LIQUID AMBAR (Sweet Gum). A 

 very beautiful summer-leafing maple- 

 like tree from Florida westward to 

 the prairie states, often reaching 

 100 feet in height, the leaves turning 

 an intense deep purplish red in autumn, 

 fine in effect. This tree, thriving in 

 wet and marshy places, is more at 

 home in Great Britain than some of the 

 American trees. It would probably 

 attain a greater stature in river-side 

 soil in a warmer country than ours, the 

 best trees in its native country growing 

 in rich moist soils. In N. Britain, and 

 N. Europe generally, it is somewhat 

 slow and tender. It makes a beautiful 

 lawn and home - ground tree, but 

 should be planted in rather deep moist 

 soil. The leaves are fragrant in spring. 

 It would be better grown as a group 

 than as single plants. Seed. 



LIRIODENDRON (Tulip Tree).~L. 

 tulipiferum is one of the noblest of 

 flowering trees. It is only when the 

 tree has reached maturity that it bears 

 its beautiful Tulip-like flowers of pale 

 green and yellow. Young Tulip trees 

 should be planted on lawns in free or 

 ordinary soils, as the flowers are very 

 pretty in a cut state for the house, and 

 the tree a beautiful one at all times. 

 N. America. 



