Geraniums Of Geraniums there are a large number of beautiful kinds, 



for the Wild natives of Great Britain and Europe, which make strong 

 Garden perennial plants, and can be grown easily and quickly from 

 seed. Our wild Geranium pratensc varies a good deal in 

 colour, I fancy, with its soil. In Yorkshire this year I saw 

 patches of it growing by the roadside, which were almost as 

 blue as grandtflorum and most lovely in effect with Meadow- 

 sweet and Wild Roses. Two other native varieties 

 lancastriense^ pale pink or flesh colour with purple veins, and 

 sylvaticum^ with mauve, or occasionally white flowers are worth 

 growing. The white form of Robertianum is also charming ; 

 this seeds itself profusely and is one of those useful plants which 

 establish themselves in crannies of a brick wall. Names of the 

 garden varieties seem to be a good deal confused, and one needs 

 to be sure what variety one is introducing, as some are of an 

 ugly magenta tone. This may be partly because nursery- 

 men very often do not distinguish at all events in their 

 catalogues between blues, mauves, or even purples. One 

 authority, for instance, describes G. ibericum as " rich purple with 

 dark veins," and another the same variety as " large deep blue." 

 There is a dark almost claret variety, with finely pencilled 

 black veins, which I found unnamed in a garden, and am still 

 trying to identify. The white ones also are very pretty, but 

 again there seems uncertainty about the names. These would 

 be excellent for growing with grandlflorum^ which is un- 

 doubtedly the best and clearest of the blues. 



Geraniums always recall to my mind the hayfields of 

 Monte Generoso, where the tall mauve variety is such a feature, 

 though it contends for its effect with so many other flowers. 

 If only these Alpine hayfields could be reproduced, the problem 



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