100 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1892. 



These are almost invariably found together in open sandy locali- 

 ties ; and a beautiful combination they make either in field or 

 bouquet — the Patrinia with its broad cymes of pale gold and 

 the Platycodon with its large bells of heaven's own deep blue. 

 You are wondering what are the other flowers which make up 

 the magic number, and as these, with one exception, are also 

 found wild in Yesso, I may mention them. They are the grass 

 pink, the morning glory, a grass which has beautiful autumn 

 plumes {Ev.lalia Japonica)^ the aster and the wistaria. The 

 latter I have never seen wild in Yesso. 



The dog's-tooth violet ( Erylhronium Dens-canis), with unu- 

 sually large pink flowers, is a woodland beauty which grows in 

 many places in extraordinary profusion ; and excelling even 

 this in abundance is the sweet lily-of-the-valley ( Convallaria 

 majalis), of which I have seen dozens of acres in one lot. This 

 attains to great size and beauty here; and so well do soil and 

 climate seem to suit it that in places it takes possession of the 

 ground to the almost entire exclusion of other plants. It makes 

 itself a great nuisance in pastures ; and during my stay in Japan 

 I was more than once consulted as to means of exterminating it, 

 or asked whether some practical use could not be made of it. 

 The l)eauty and the fragrance of such pastures, however, you 

 can imagine. 



A beautiful dark purple (the Japanese say black) lily ( Fritil- 

 laria Kamchatensis ) is rather rarel}^ found, and it never fails to 

 excite the liveliest feelings of admiration. I have known a 

 Japanese to carry a bulb in bud or in flower more than a hun- 

 dred miles on horseback to plant it in his garden. I have my- 

 self also tried to transplant it ; but without success. It thrives 

 in cool and shady localities and would certainly be highly appre- 

 ciated should it do well under cultivation. 



One other wild Yesso lily I must mention for it is of surpass- 

 ing grace and beauty. I christened it the "fairy-lily." It is 

 the ( Lilium medeoloides) of Gray. It produces a very large 

 whorl of leaves a short distance below the flower, which pecul- 

 iarity causes the Japanese to call it the "wheel-lily." Good 

 specimens produce as many as a dozen of the most dainty lilies 



