226 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



seems to have been first noticed in a wild condi- 

 tion in Britain by Sir Joseph Paxton in 1837, who 

 found it in a large plantation near Chatsworth. 

 It may sometimes in plant lists be met with as 

 C. alsinoides, but the specific name, sibirica? 

 has the priority and is therefore now accepted. 

 The flowers occasionally vary to white. Each 

 plant forms a large clump and tells to the eye as 

 a mass of pink, star-like blossoms. When the 

 young seedlings are once pricked out the plant 

 gives no more trouble. It. is bound to grow. 



Harking back awhile to Plate XXVII., we find 

 that not only does it yield us an illustration of 

 the bistort a plant that we have already referred 

 to but that this bistort is flanked on either side 

 by a companion blossom. The larger of these is 

 the Ononis fruticosa, the crimson restharrow. 

 The common restharrow has its flowers of a pale 

 pink and is worth cultivation, but the present 

 plant is richer in tint. Some authorities tell us 

 that the name should be given as wrest-harrow, 

 declaring that the tough branches and compact 

 growth of the plant wrest the harrow aside, while 

 the advocates of the common form of the word 



1 It may seem strange that a plant so generally recognised 

 as North American should be ascribed to Siberia, but the 

 plant is no less at home in Northern Russia. Linneus, who 

 called it sibirica, was, we must remember, a Swede, and at 

 least as likely in 1753 to receive plants from Russia as from 

 America, 



