MARSH ORCHIS 259 



of poppies, without importing a cottage roof to 

 carry them. Would one achieve success, it is 

 most important to consider the idiosyncracies of 

 our various plants. We must adapt our conditions 

 to them : they have little or no idea of adapting 

 themselves to us. A noble tuft of our common 

 harebell in the midst of rough rockwork is as 

 graceful an object as one could desire to see. As 

 it in a wild state prospers best on down lands and 

 open heaths, we must see to it that its place in 

 our floral fraternity is open to the light and air 

 and in a position as dry as our general conditions 

 will permit, while the transportation of our noble 

 yellow kingcups to such a spot would mean almost 

 immediate drooping and prompt dissolution. 



The central flower on Plate XXXVI., the marsh 

 orchis, is very much a case in point, as it is ordi- 

 narily found in very wet meadows. It will grow 

 grandly if we are careful to plant it in a moist 

 position, and will throw up a stem over a foot in 

 height, its dense spike of rose-red, or purple, or 

 more rarely white blossoms, making it a very 

 attractive plant. In the " Flora Londinensis " of 

 Curtis a book published in 1798 we find that 

 it was then growing abundantly in the Battersea 

 meadows. Those meadows we well remember, 

 though not at the time that Curtis visited them. 

 They were very rough and irregular, and more 

 or less deeply cut into by channels from the 



