THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARbEti. 



kvosotis. 



S. Europe, easily grown in ordinary 

 soil, and charming spring bloomers. 

 They are all so much alike in their 

 characteristics that a separate descrip- 

 tion for each one is not needed. The 

 main thing is to get the best kinds and 

 enough of these and use them rightly. 

 They do not come well into the flower 

 garden, as their season of bloom is not 

 long, and it is therefore worth while 

 naturalising them in free soils, and 

 also using them as edgings in the 

 flower garden. One of the best is 

 conicum, which is free and handsome ; 

 botry ' aides and its forms are also good. 

 I find the native racemosum as good as 

 any. 



MUTISIA. Very curious and dis- 

 tinct half-shrubby climbers from Peru, 

 with tendril-pointed leaves. Other 



kinds are natives of the Chilian Andes, 

 and have simple leaves, rigid in tex- 

 ture, and their habit is, as a rule, bushy 

 and not climbing. They are found 

 at elevations sufficiently high to admit 

 of their being grown out of doors in 

 England, or at any rate in the warmer 

 parts of the country, and yet the 

 Mutisias are scarcely known in our 

 gardens. Some few cultivators have 

 been successful with M. decurrens ; 

 once or twice M. ilicifolia has been 

 grown and flowered very well. M. 

 Clematis is the least delicate of the 

 garden Mutisias. 



M. CLEMATIS. The first coloured pic- 

 ture of this species ever published in any 

 English work was the plate in The Garden, 

 ayth July 1883. It is a tall herbaceous 

 climber, 10 to 20 feet high, with pinnate 

 leaves, terminating in branched tendrils, 



the leaflets being covered on the under 

 side with a fine silky down. There are 

 very few instances of its successful culture, 

 even in the south. This species is a native 

 of New Grenada, Peru, and Ecuador, at 

 elevations of from 6000 to 11,000 feet. 



M. DECURRENS. Of this, the most 

 beautiful of the three garden Mutisias, 

 a fine plate will be found in The Garden 

 for 1883, p. 553. Mr Coleman has grown 

 it well amongst Rhododendrons at Eastnor 

 Castle ; Mr Gumbleton, Mr Hooke, Mr 

 Ellacombe, and Kew have also had it in 

 good condition. Most cultivators kill this 

 species by planting it in a hot, sunny, dry 

 position. It wants a moist, cool soil, a 

 sunny, airy position, and a few slender 

 Pea-sticks to clamber upon. The stems 

 when mature are wiry, the leaves strap- 

 shaped, with the blade extending a long 

 distance down the stem, forming very 

 conspicuous wings. The midrib is pro- 

 longed into a stout wiry tendril, which 

 holds on firmly to anything it once clasps. 

 There are fourteen ray-florets, each half 

 an inch across, spreading, and then curving 

 elegantly downwards, their colour being 

 brilliant orange. The disc is bluish-green. 



M. ILICIFOLIA. Native of Chili, where 

 it grows over bushes. The plant has thin 

 wiry stems, and every part is covered with 

 a cobweb-like tomentum. The leaves 

 are about 2 inches long, the margins spiny- 

 toothed, the texture leathery, and the 

 midrib extending beyond the blade, 

 branching and forming a strong twining 

 tendril. The flowers are axillary, 3 inches 

 across, with from eight to twelve ray 

 florets coloured pale pink or sometimes 

 white with pink tips ; the disc is lemon- 

 yellow. It is a distinct, interesting, and 

 beautiful plant, but very difficult to grow. 



MYOSOTIDIUM (Antarctic Forget- 

 me-Not). M. nobile is a lovely her- 

 baceous plant about which very little 

 is known. In its native isle it is a 

 seaside plant, in damp sand. It has 

 a thick root-stock, from which arise 

 the large heart-shaped, shining green 

 leaves. The erect stem is leafy all the 

 way up, and is terminated by a loose 

 corymb of flowers in colour like Forget- 

 me-Not, but the shade of blue varies. 

 After flowering, the plants should be 

 kept in a cool and light position in a 

 frame, and be liberally watered in dry 

 weather. It is a native of the Chatham 

 Islands, a small group in the Pacific, 

 lying 400 miles east of New Zealand. 

 It was flowered in several gardens of 

 recent years, and very finely by Mrs 

 Rogers, in Cornwall in the open air. 



MYOSOTIS ( Forget-me- Not) .Beau- 

 tiful perennial and biennial marsh and 

 alpine plants, children of the mountain 

 and marsh land from many parts of 



