128 THE WILD GAEDEN. 



place.s. The nearly allied Annii Lily (C'alla icthiopica) is ipiite hardy 

 as a water and water- side plant in the southern counties of England 

 and Ireland. 



Silkweed, Asdepias. — Usually vigorous perennials, ^\hh \-ery 

 curious and ornamental flowers, common in fields and on river banks 

 in North America and Canada, where thej' sometimes become trouble- 

 some weeds. Of the species in cultivation, A. C'urnuti and A. Douglasi 

 could l>e naturalised easily in rich deep soil in wild 2)laces. The 

 showy and dwarfer Asclepias tuberosa requires very warm sand soils 

 to flower as well as in its own dry hills and fields. A good many of 

 the hardy species are not introduced ; for such the place is the wild 

 garden. Some of them are water-side plants, such as A. incarnata, the 

 Swamp Silkweed of the United States. 



Starwort, Aster. — A very large family of usually vigorous, (iften 

 showy, and sometimes beautiful perennials, mostly with bluish or 

 white flowers, chiefly natives of North America. Many of these, of an 

 inferior order of beauty, used to be planted in our mixed borders, 

 which they very much helped to bring into discredit, and they form a 

 very good example of a class of plants for which the true place is the 

 copse, or rough and half-cared-for j^laces in shrubberies and coi:)ses, and 

 by wood-walks, where they will grow as freely as any native weeds, 

 and in many cases prove highly attractive in late summer and autumn. 

 Such kinds as A. pyrenseus, Amellus, and turbinellus, are amongst the 

 most ornamental perennials we have. With the Asters may be grouj^ed 

 the Galatellas, the Yernonias, and also the handsome and rather dwarf 

 Erigeron speciosus, which, however, not being so tall, could not fight 

 its way among such coarse vegetation as that in which the Asters may 

 be grown. Associated with the Golden Rods (Solidago) — also common 

 plants of the American woods and copses — the best of the Asters or 

 Michaelmas Daisies Avill form a very interesting aspect of vegetation. 

 It is that one sees in American woods in late summer and autumn 

 when the Golden Rods and Asters are seen in bloom together. It is 

 ( )ne of numerous aspects of the vegetation of other countries which the 

 " wild garden" will make possible in gardens. To produce such effects 

 the plants must, of course, be planted in some quantity in one part of 

 a rather open wood, and not repeated all over the place or mixed up 

 with many other things. Nearly 200 sjjecies are known, about 150 

 of which form part of the rich vegetation of North America. These 

 fine plants inhabit that great continent, from Mexico — where a few are 

 found — to the United States and Canada, where they abound, and even 

 \\l^ to the regions altogether arctic of that quarter of the world. 



