130 GARDENS PAST AND PRESENT 



mossy and silvery-leaved saxifrages the dainty 

 little anemones of the woodland type, as well as 

 some of the larger and finer species are all at 

 home in the English rock garden. Ramondia, 

 too, the pretty rock mullein, which Parkinson 

 quaintly calls the blew beares-eares with borage 

 leaves, and its congeners, which want no sun- 

 shine, but nestle into the shadiest nooks among 

 the stones, are not hard to accommodate. These 

 are but a few; but besides the real Alpines there 

 are interesting dwarf perennials which are worthy 

 of a choicer place than the ordinary border. To 

 name some amongst the many, there is the prophet 

 flower (Arnebia echioides), with its vanishing 

 freckles; the honey-drop Onosmas; some of the 

 Mertensias, including our dainty native oyster 

 plant, w r hich is ready enough to do without the 

 salt sea breezes, and the gentian-blue Polemonium 

 confertum, which may or may not take kindly to 

 the quarters one can give it, or its much more 

 easily contented cousin, the white-flowered P. mel- 

 litum. All these we may know, but we never get 

 tired of them. Some are easy, others hard to 

 grow, but all are worth trying, for in gardening 

 no one can foresee what special factor of soil 

 or aspect in any particular plot of ground may 

 make for the well-doing, or the undoing, of a 

 plant. There is no need, however, to pin our 

 faith always upon the old well-tried favourites 

 for every day brings new discoveries. From 

 China and Japan they come ; from the little- 

 explored mountains of Bosnia and Servia, or 

 of Asia Minor ; from far-off Canadian high- 



