244 IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN 



rather plagues than pleasures, but when you have viewed 

 them well what I bring in, I will then abide your censure.' 



Among these I should select the different species of 

 Echinops. These are well named from the echinus or 

 sea-urchin, as, like that, the perfect flower-heads are 

 exact globes set with spines ; they are mostly European 

 and perfectly hardy, and they are probably among the 

 longest lived of any herbaceous plants. How long they 

 will live and flourish in the same place I cannot say, 

 but I have plants in my garden which I am sure have 

 been in their present places for seventy years, and are 

 as fresh and flourishing as if they had been planted 

 this year. When fully perfect, the flowers are either 

 blue or white, and 'they make a fine show, much 

 delighting the spectator.' But their near allies, the 

 Eryingia, are even handsomer. They are for the most 

 part blue or white, and some of them, especially Eryn- 

 gium amethystinum and E. oliverianum, are of a rich 

 metallic blue colour both in flowers and stems, which 

 I know of in no other flower whatever. All the 

 Eryngia are handsome plants, most easy of cultivation, 

 but there is one which I think is unsurpassed as a 

 hardy plant where it likes the soil and is well grown. 

 This is the E. giganteum from the Caucasus ; it is only 

 a biennial (as so many of the thistles are), but it sheds 

 its seeds freely, and Avhen once established in the 



