BEST HARDY PERENNIALS 307 



needs the same culture, and where it thrives it in- 

 creases at a great pace. It has apricot coloured flowers 

 with bright red anthers, and grows taller than the 

 Madonna Lily. It does not mind disturbance so much, 

 and is almost as beautiful. It makes a magnificent 

 contrast with the Belladonna Larkspur. These are 

 the two chief garden lilies. Others are beautiful and 

 easy, but not good enough to be among our fifty plants. 

 Then there are Paeonies. Among these it is impossible 

 to make a final choice, but there is none more beau- 

 tiful, robust, and free-flowering than The Bride, a 

 large, pure white single variety of Pseonia albiflora. 

 Columbines are even more difficult to choose. Aquile- 

 gia caerulea is not a true perennial in most gardens; 

 A. glandulosa and the hybrid Stuartii are very capri- 

 cious. The long-spurred hybrids are not fixed and 

 have no names; but they are the Columbines for the 

 ordinary gardener, and there is no flower in the gar- 

 den to beat a fine blue and white hybrid of A. caerulea, 

 with a thoroughly robust habit. 



The Dropmore variety of Anchusa italica must 

 come in our anthology, although it will die out after 

 a year or two if not propagated by ordinary or root 

 cuttings. It is, however, the finest of all blue border 

 plants, and cuttings are very easily struck. The new 

 pale blue variety, Opal, is almost as beautiful. Among 

 the Campanulas we have no hesitation in choosing 

 C. persicifolia, variety grandiflora. This is a plant 

 to be raised from seed. The seedlings will vary both 

 in the colour and the size of their flowers. The best 



