PART L] CULTURAL 53 



while far north, and west, and south along the mountains, the 

 beautiful Mocassin-flower (Cypripedium spectcMle) grows the 

 queen of the peat-bog and of hardy orchids. Then in 

 California, all along the Sierras, a number of delicate little 

 annual plants grow in small mountain bogs long after the 

 plains are parched, and vegetation has disappeared from the 

 dry ground. But who shall record the beauty and interest of 

 the flowers of the wide-spreading marsh-lands of this globe of 

 ours, from those of the vast wet woods of America, dark and 

 brown, where the fair flowers only meet the eyes of water- 

 snakes and frogs, to those of the breezy uplands of the high 

 Alps, far above the woods, where the little mountain-marshes 

 teem with Nature's most brilliant flowers, waving in the 

 breeze ? Many mountain-swamp regions are as yet as little 

 known to us as those of the Himalaya, with their giant 

 Primroses and strange and lovely flowers. One thing, however, 

 we may gather from our small experiences that many plants 

 commonly termed "alpine," and found on high mountains, are 

 true marsh-plants. This must be clear to any one who has 

 seen our Bird's-eye Primrose in the wet mountain-side bogs of 

 Westmoreland, or the Bavarian Gentian in the spongy soil by 

 alpine rivulets. We enjoy at our doors the plants of hottest 

 tropical isles, but many wrongly think the rare bog-plants, like 

 the minute alpine plants, cannot be grown well in gardens. 

 Like the rock-garden, the marsh-garden is seldom seen well 

 made, and with its most suitable plants. 



In some places, naturally boggy spots may be found, which 

 may be converted into a marsh-garden, but in most places 

 an artificial is the only possible one. It may be associated 

 with a rock-garden with good effect, or it may be in a moist 

 hollow, or may touch upon the margins of a pond or lake. By 

 the margins of streamlets, too, little bogs may often be made. 

 But the mania for draining springy and marshy spots has in 

 most places left little chance of a natural site, such as might 

 readily be turned into a marsh-garden. A tiny streamlet may 

 be diverted from the main one to flow over the adjacent grass 

 irrigation on a small scale. Another good kind could be made 



