38 STUDIES IN GARDENING 



the Canterbury-bell namely, C. latiloba (or grandis) 

 and C. persicifolia. C. latiloba is the easiest grown 

 of the campanulas, thriving in poor soil, provided it 

 is not too hot, and increasing like a weed. It has 

 soft-blue flowers shaped like a plate or a shallow 

 saucer, and there is a white variety which grows 

 stronger than the type. C. persicifolia is, perhaps, 

 the most beautiful of all border campanulas, and one 

 of the few that have been improved by the florists. 

 The type is naturalized in some parts of England, 

 and has bell-shaped flowers of the ordinary cam- 

 panula blue. There is a natural white variety of it, 

 also naturalized. C. p. grandiflora is a variety with 

 much larger flowers and a most beautiful and vigorous 

 plant. It can be obtained with dark-blue, pale-blue, 

 and white flowers. C. persicifolia, like most cam- 

 panulas, can be raised very easily from seed, and the 

 best way to obtain fine forms is to raise a number of 

 seedlings from a good strain of the grandiflora variety 

 and to keep only the finest of these, raising seedlings 

 from them again in due course. C. persicifolia is not 

 a very long-lived plant, and is apt to dwindle and 

 deteriorate after two years or so, so that the stock 

 should be constantly renewed. Several double varie- 

 ties have lately been produced, but in all of them a 

 great part of the peculiar grace of the flower is lost, 

 and there seems to be no reason whatever for their 

 existence. C. latifolia is a fine British species with 

 pale-blue flowers. In rich soil and a cool situation it 

 will grow 5 ft. or more high and seeds itself freely. 



