JULY PROBLEMS 111 



they are difficult to support inconspicuously by the 

 ordinary method of stake and raffia. I grow mine in 

 good-sized clumps and stick stout, widely spread pieces 

 of pea-brush about among them. This is the most 

 satisfactory method, for it allows some of the stems to 

 fall forward a little, giving to the clump an agreeable 

 rounded outline. The thick fleshy root of the Platy- 

 codon seems to enable it to ignore the drought, and its 

 clean-cut, fresh-coloured blossoms are always a pleasant 

 sight in the garden. 



The beautiful family of Aconites I always hesitate to 

 recommend as the whole plant is very poisonous when 

 eaten and, where there are children, might prove a 

 serious danger. My own children know it well and its 

 deadly consequences and avoid it assiduously. The 

 fact that they are tall plants suitable for the back 

 of the border makes it possible to put them pretty 

 well out of reach, and they are among the most beau- 

 tiful of the flowers blooming in mid-summer and au- 

 tumn. They have long been among garden flowers; 

 the old gardeners, Parkinson and Gerarde, give long 

 lists of sorts, interspersing their admiring descriptions 

 with illustrated warnings of the dire results of eating 

 any part of the plant. Gerarde writes of A. Napellus: 

 "this kinde of Wolfesbane, called Napellus vernus, in 

 English, Helmet-flowers, or the Great Monkshood 

 beareth very faire and goodly blew flowres in shape 

 like an helmet, which are so beautiful that a man would 



