BOG PLANTS 301 



places. A good many of them are variegated with white and yellow 

 and these my taste would reject. There is beauty enough in the 

 green-leaved grasses, especially the bamboos, particularly the one 

 for which I proposed the name Riviere's bamboo, viz., Phyl- 

 lostachys viridi-glaucescens. This is noted for its great, billowy 

 masses. Mr. Lynch, at Cambridge, told me it is the greatest cold- 

 resister among the bamboos, and the best for large masses at the 

 water side. 



New to me was the perennial wild rice (Zizania latifolia), 

 which makes a magnificent specimen plant, growing to the height 

 of a man and having a bolder and wider leaf than the commoner 

 species (Z. aquatica), which is an annual. (Plate 35.) 



Somehow I failed to see that well-known British plant, the 

 blue-lyme grass (Elymus arenarius), which is noted for its blue- 

 gray foliage. It makes clumps about four feet high and some 

 gardeners think it looks best if the flowers are removed. 



As to ferns, the bog garden is just the place for them, since 

 they need plenty of water and shade for their grandest develop- 

 ment. I must have seen two dozen species in English bog 

 gardens, and I know that fifty are available, but for use on a great 

 scale I saw nothing better than our own cinnamon and royal ferns. 

 I wish, however, that my friends would experiment on a small 

 scale with the hart's tongue fern, which is pictured at plate 98. 



THE PRECIOUS HART'S TONGUE 



New to me was the hart's tongue fern (Scolopendrium vul- 

 gar e), which every English child knows and loves for the breadth 

 and brilliancy of its thick, leathery, undivided leaf. The picture 

 is a fair portrait, but fails to show its charming environment. 

 The hart's tongue grows on roadside rocks and walls, on shady 



