City Squares, &c. 47 



Recently, fascination of what are called bedding 

 plants, with brilliant bloom and foliage, becoming 

 epidemic, seemed to threaten permanently to displace 

 many herbaceous favourites from the prominence 

 they long enjoyed as border plants, but reaction has 

 set in in favour of intermingling the latter with the 

 others, without injuring the claims of either. Even 

 the limited opportunities I have had for observing 

 how some handsome herbaceous plants, hitherto little 

 tried in Dublin, will there succeed, encourage me to 

 expect to see many growing luxuriantly amongst us. 



We all remember varieties of Saxifragia^ called 

 London Pride and Paris Pride, as familiar to us in 

 childhood. Now, at least one hundred and fifty 

 kinds of this family are in culture, of which many 

 beautiful varieties grow well in our cities. Large, 

 fleshy-leaved species, such as 8. cordifolia, 8. crassi- 

 folia, are quite hardy, and have abundant bunches of 

 handsome pink flowers in early spring, and some 

 even before close of winter. 8. ciliata is handsome, 

 but not quite so hardy as those others. Several 

 kinds, with slender flower-stems, varying in height 

 from a few inches to about two feet, and of whose 

 flowers some are white and others speckled and 

 spotted, and with variety of foliage, come in later 

 than the fleshy-leaved kinds, and are worthy of 

 more general attention than they have hitherto re- 

 ' ceived. S. Ncpafcnsis, S. Fortuni, S. ligulata, 8. 

 rosularis, S.pyramidalis, &c., may also be mentioned. 

 Some of the low-growing kinds form good carpeting, as 



