8o MY GARDEN 



globularia cordifolia prospers in the next compart- 

 ment, and globularia nana, the loveliest mite that 

 ever gladdened a rockery, has left the Pyrenees to 

 keep its kinsman company. Gazania nivea is over- 

 rated in my judgment, but it blossoms abundantly 

 here, and seems very nearly if not quite as hardy 

 as splendens. A white cistus rises at the back of this 

 rock-border. It grows at a great rate and flowers 

 freely. Here, too, the dwarf irises occur in shades 

 of grey, purple, and yellow. Pumila loves a ledge 

 in a rock-garden, and often blows with me in autumn 

 as well as spring. Statice incana thrives close by, and 

 various things sprawl together round the throne of 

 geranium armenum. Malvastrum lateritum will have 

 to go ; but I admire his brick-red blooms. A neat 

 eryngium also lives here. It is as bright as amethy- 

 stinum, but smaller in all its parts. I dug it up in 

 the wilds outside the town of Algiers. There, as a 

 weed, it occurred in a resting stage about the edge 

 of vineyards. Great cerinthes prospered with it, and 

 heaths, and many sorts of orchis and ophrys folk, 

 were of that company. Ophrys is not easy to grow 

 in pots ; mine sulked for a year, which was not 

 surprising, as I dug the poor atoms up while they 

 were flowering. 



An Arab helped me to get the eryngium and other 

 good things. He was a cheerful, genial soul, and had 

 just married a wife, who lived with him in rather 

 a shabby hut among the hills. It was surrounded 

 by agaves and opuntias, and shadowed by a fig tree. 

 Oranges and a Japan quince grew at the door ; a vast 



