SNAPDRAGON 153 



we figure on Plate IX. 1 It is one of our rarer 

 species. The white stone-crop, S. alburn^ is another 

 desirable rarity. In a florist's list before us we find 

 fifty-three kinds of stone-crop catalogued, having 

 flowers white, yellow, pink, blue, purple, and 

 orange. 



Pliny recommends the wall-pepper as an excel- 

 lent means of curing insomnia, two precautions 

 only being essential to its success that it should 

 be wrapped in something black before being put 

 under the pillow, and that the patient should not 

 be aware of its presence. From the days of Galen 

 and Dioscorides it has been held in medical repute, 

 dropsy, epilepsy, fevers, and divers other ailments 

 being supposed to yield to its healing power, 

 though the modern pharmacopoeia knows it not. 



Another excellent plant that thrives on old walls is 

 the snapdragon the Antirrhinum majus ; we have 

 figured it on Plate XL, in company with the celan- 

 dine. It is wonderful that with so light a holdfast 

 and so meagre an amount of nourishment the plant 

 does so well. We have measured one of our plants 

 and found that the central shoot out of several 

 that clustered around it, and were nearly as fine 

 was over a yard in height, or, to be precise, forty 

 inches and a half, and this was growing from a mere 



1 The centre flower on Plate IX. is the Geranium nodosum, 

 already referred to in discussing various crane's-bills, while 

 the left-hand plant is the Spircea tomentosa. 



