98 MY GARDEN 



this last, but never flowered it. Recurva is a fine 

 plant, and meleagris, the snake's head, nods in 

 hundreds of little sad-coloured, drooping bells over 

 my white rockery in April. 



Of babiana I can only say that they are nearly 

 hardy. I have seen none of the really lovely species 

 figured in old botanies such as tubiflora, stricta, or 

 spathacea but I believe they may be got. Like ixia, 

 sparaxis, and some gladiolus, they shoot early, and 

 their foliage is apt to be spoiled. They deteriorate 

 with years, and as mine were never grand varieties, 

 but only a cheap and very mixed company when they 

 joined me, I generally pull them up now when their 

 hot purple catches my eye. This is a bulb I must 

 grow again seriously, and the same remark applies 

 to tritonia. The rich yellow and scarlet-orange of 

 tritonia is very agreeable, and his habits are good. 

 He too suffers from spring frost. Our mild autumns 

 delude many half-hardy bulbs into making a start, 

 with a result that their green plumes are often dashed 

 before blooming. Tritonia flowers in June, and is well 

 worth a place in your rockery. 



Of ixia I have already spoken. It is absolutely 

 hardy in a well-drained, sunny spot, but simply for 

 the sake of the foliage they might be dug up when 

 ripe and not planted again till early spring. Sparaxis 

 is the first of my Cape bulbs to appear. It is often 

 out before Pushkinia and scilla have done. Nobody 

 can afford to be without Mr. Wallace's lovely sparaxis, 

 " Fire King." This is the grand old ixia tri-color 

 revived. A hundred years and more ago there was 



