ALTUMX. 109 



come into bloom before April is out. Eucharidium con- 

 cinnum and a seed-sport of it called grandiflorum, are 

 among the first gems that ought to be grown in any 

 garden, and they stand a smart winter ; to say that they 

 are diminutives of the red or purple Clarkia^ will give 

 an idea of their size and flowers. Godetia Lindleyana and 

 ruhicunda are as good as they are gay, and as hardy as a 

 Scotch crocus. They are the best of a long list of godetias, 

 and they will be the brighter in flower, and more manage- 

 able in plant, if they are planted in the very poorest soil 

 in the kingdom ; but, recollect, if so poor, it must be deep 

 and well worked. You might call a hard, dry bank poor, 

 and no annual would get a holding on it, and still it might 

 be so good as to grow an oak. Stinted growth is quite a 

 different thing from subdued growth caused by poor, sandy 

 soil well tilled. . . . Eri/simiun Pirofskianum, a tall yellow 

 flower, like a turnip -flower, when sown in September, 

 planted out at the beginning of March, and trained down 

 to the surface of the bed as it grows, comes into bloom 

 at the beginning of May, and lasts till midsummer, or 

 longer, and, so treated, is one of the very finest beds ever 

 seen in May ; but if allowed to grow its own way, you 

 might just as w^ell have a bed of seed turnips. . . . Liipinus 

 nanus, (what a pity that gardeners do not sow large 

 breadths of this very beautiful dwarf lupin every autumn !) 

 has quite a difi'erent character when allowed to grow on 

 slowly all the winter. It would do to plant out in April, 

 where Lohelia racemoia or any dwarf blue plant, was 

 too tall late in the season. It blooms from May till the 



