EXAMPLE FROM THE FORGET-ME-NOT FAMILY. 11 



M'itli it, there is the deej) crimson Boliemian Comfrcy (S. 

 bohemicum), which is sometimes startliug from the deptli of 

 its vivid coloiirinu- ; and tlie white Comfrey (S. orientale), (j^nite 

 a vigorous-growing kind, blooming early in April ami ^lay, 

 with the blue Caucasian C. 



These Comfreys, indeed, are admirable plants for rougli 

 places — the tall and vigorous ones thriving in a ditch or any 

 similar place, and flowering much better and longer than 

 they ever did in the garden proper, in prim borders. There 

 are about twenty species, mostly from Southern and Central 

 Europe, Asia, and Silieria. 



I purposely omit the British Forget-me-nots, wishing now 

 chiefly to show what we may do with exotics quite as hardy 

 as our own wildlings ; and we have another Forget-me-not, 

 not British, which surpasses them all — the early Myosotis 

 dissitiflora. This is lilvc a patch of the bluest sky settled 

 down among the moist stones of a rockwork or any similar 

 spot, before our own Forget-me-not has opened its blue eyes, 

 and is admirable for glades or banks in wood or shrubbery, 

 especially in moist districts. 



For rocky bare places and sunny sandy banks we lune 

 the spreading Gromwell (Lithospermum pirostratum), which, 

 when in flower, looks just as if some exquisite alj)ine Gentian 

 had assumed the form of a low Ijush, to enable it to hold its 

 own among creeping things and stouter herbs than accompany 

 it on the Alps. The Gromwells are a large and important 

 genus l^ut little known in gardens, some of them, like our 

 native kind, being handsome plants. 



Among the fairest plants we have are tlie Lungworts, 

 Pulmonaria, too seldom seen, and partly destroyed through 



