266 BULBS 



A quaint and charming meadow flower is the snake's head or 

 guinea hen flower, a pendant white lily bell, marvellously tesellated 

 with purple. In old-fashioned gardens you may sometimes see 

 the guinea hen flowers idly swinging their bells, but it is a sensation 

 of a lifetime to watch thousands of them responding to a gentle 

 breeze that ruffles the lush meadow grass in May. The bulbs 

 cost only a cent and a half each by the thousand. This flower is 

 known to bulb merchants as Fritillaria Meleagris. The popular 

 names are objectionable. Checkered lily is distinctive and 

 descriptive. 



In June the lemon lily is very lovely in English meadows, its 

 narrow leaves blending perfectly with the tall grass. (See plate 

 25.) Hemerocallis Hava is much more refined than H.fulva, the 

 orange day lily. It is best to confine them to areas that can be 

 easily protected from the mower. 



The grandest American lily that grows naturally in meadows is 

 the American Turk's cap (Lilium superbum), a nodding orange 

 flower thickly spotted, and with petals rolled far back. It reaches 

 its grandest proportions eight feet high and forty-five flowers on 

 a stem only in moist, peaty soil and partial shade. However, 

 if it does even a third as well in meadows it is a glorious sight. It 

 blooms in August. The English cannot grow this species as well 

 as its Pacific coast equivalent the leopard lily (L. pardalinum). 



Another American bulb that grows naturally in meadows is 

 the purple camass or quamash (Camassia esculentd), which grows 

 about two feet high and bears in July ten to forty starry flowers of 

 dark blue or purple. The English sometimes grow the camass, 

 and it costs them only a cent a bulb by the thousand. 



In September autumn crocuses are very interesting with their 

 pink, white, or purplish flowers three or four inches across. (See 



