256 THE RIDDLE OF THE BAMBOOS 



although a spring flowerer, forms a grand filling for blank 

 spaces with its huge circular leaves, turning brilliant red 

 in autumn. 



I had nearly included the great Californian poppy-wort, 

 Romneya Coulteri, among tall things for the back of 

 the border; but it is a thing of such singular delicacy 

 combined with splendour that it ought to have space all 

 to itself. Set it therefore in some secluded glade or 

 beside some dignified bit of architecture, treat it gener- 

 ously in the matter of diet and sunshine, and you will be 

 rewarded by a vision of loveliness such as the Frontispiece 

 reflects a feeble simulacrum. And here I am at the end 

 of my paper, without having named more than a tithe of 

 the autumnal flowers which require only the application 

 of taste, discretion, and a modicum of knowledge to yield 

 a display that goes far to mitigate the pain of parting 

 even with such a divine summer as that of 1905. 



LXI 

 The vegetable kingdom presents problems, many of 



them not a whit less obscure than those of the 

 The Riddle 



of the animal world; and one of these has been 

 Bamboos brought forcibly to notice during the present 

 year. Five-and-twenty years ago the number of British 

 and Irish gardens to which hardy bamboos added their 

 peculiar grace might have been counted on the fingers ; 

 nowadays it is seldom that well-tended pleasure-grounds 

 are without some of these giant grasses. But the season 

 of 1905 will be remembered as disastrous to the fond 

 hopes of those who imagined that bamboos had come to 

 stay. For many years they continued to increase in 



