BEST HARDY PERENNIALS 313 



beware of it, as it spreads by underground suckers, 

 and these will come up 6 ft. away from the parent 

 plant. Sidalcea is also a very spreading plant, but 

 S. Listeri, with delicate pink flowers, is less trouble- 

 some by far than S. Candida, and also prettier. The 

 musk mallow (Malva moschata) is one of the most 

 beautiful of our wild flowers, and well worth a place 

 in any garden; but the white variety is still more 

 beautiful and not so often seen in gardens as it de- 

 serves. Of the St. John's Worts Hypericum Mose- 

 rianum, a half shrubby species, is the best and a beau- 

 tiful border plant. Most of the Erodiums are rock 

 plants, but E. Manescavi should be in every garden, 

 if only because it is one of the longest blooming of 

 all hardy plants. It is not brilliant, but its flowers 

 have a quiet and delicate beauty of their own. The 

 most familiar Saxifrage, of course, is London Pride, 

 but a finer plant altogether for the cool border is a 

 variety of S. rotundifolia sold as S. Lasiophylla. This 

 is probably not its true name, but it is the only one 

 we know it by. It has much larger flowers than those 

 of London Pride and also prettier leaves. It is a 

 little known plant, but of the highest value. Tiarella 

 cordifolia is another beautiful plant of the same family 

 for the front of the cool border, well known, but not 

 so much grown as it deserves. We have mentioned 

 fifty plants and there are dozens of others which we 

 feel we have unjustly neglected. But some of them 

 are a little difficult, like the beautiful Mertensia vir- 

 ginica, which where it thrives makes an exquisite 



