BOG PLANTS 295 



six feet high, with only twelve trumpets which are only six inches 

 long, is enough to take one's breath away. 



Another feature which adds greatly to the interest of 

 the giant lily is its broad heart-shaped leaves. I venture 

 to say that you never saw a lily without long, narrow leaves 

 and parallel veins. Indeed, parallel venation is one of the 

 characters that separate the monocotyledons from the 

 dicotyledons, the two biggest branches in the vegetable 

 kingdom, so far as flowering plants are concerned. Yet this 

 giant lily has broad leaves with netted veins a great rarity 

 indeed. 



It is almost a "moral certainty" that any Englishman who 

 owns a bit of moist, peaty land will try to grow Lilium giganteum. 

 I was told that at Lord Walsingham's it "grows like a weed," 

 attaining magnificent size and even sowing its own seed. But 

 nobody expects to have such luck as this, and nobody pretends to 

 tell other people just how to grow it. All agree that it must have 

 bog garden conditions, i. <?., peat, shade for the lower part of the 

 stems, and a never-failing supply of moving moisture, but beyond 

 that all is experimental. It is essentially a "sporting proposi- 

 tion," and nobody who can afford twenty dollars a dozen for the 

 bulbsseems to begrudge the price for there is a chance to make 

 superb pictures with this giant lily in a sheltered nook, surrounded 

 by huge rhododendrons and, perchance, a musical little stream 

 running past. 



HEATHS AND OTHER PEAT-LOVING SHRUBS 



One of the most enchanting plant families is the one to which 

 the heaths belong the Ericacees. It is rich in bog plants of 

 many different types of beauty. Some of the showiest are 



