194 FLOWERS OF GARDEN AND GREENHOUSE 
up and die quickly, though with very little attention they might be 
preserved for garden use. 
Description of Upper portions of both leafy and flowering shoots of 
Plate 92. Astilbe japonica. Fig. 1 is a separate flower greatly 
enlarged to exhibit the parts. 
GRASS OF PARNASSUS 
Natural Order Saxirracex. Genus Parnassia 
PaRNAssIA (from Mount Parnassus, Dioscorides having named the 
common species Grass of Parnassus). A genus of about a dozen slender, 
erect perennial herbs, with entire, chiefly radical, leaves and solitary 
flowers, large in proportion to the plant. The floral parts are in fives, 
the petals thick and enduring. They are distributed throughout the 
Arctic and Temperate regions of the globe. 
PARNASSIA PALUSTRIS (marsh-loving) is a native of our own bogs 
and wet moors. It attains a height of about 6 inches only. The 
leaves are heart-shaped, mostly radical, and these have long footstalks. 
The stem-leaves are stalkless, and only one to each stem, about half-way 
between rootstock and flower. The flowers are about an inch across, 
the leathery petals white, strongly veined with green; August and — 
September. 
Grass of Parnassus should be provided for in the garden by : 
utilising a damp-hollow, digging out the ordinary soil and filling in 
with peat. Here may be grown a number of bog-loving plants of 
considerable beauty, such as the Bog-bean (Menyanthes), Sundews 
(Drosera), Bog-Asphodel (¥, arthecium), and others. Parnassia may be 
propagated by seeds or by division of the rootstock. 
SYRINGA OR MOCK ORANGE 
Natural Order Saxtrracrx. Genus Philadelphus 
PHILADELPHUS (Greek, brotherly love). A genus of about a dozen 
species of hardy shrubs, with opposite leaves and white or straw-coloured 
flowers. The flowers ordinarily consist of a four-lobed calyx, four petals, 
and from twenty to forty stamens. They are natives of North America, 
Japan and Himalaya. Although popularly known as Syringas, these 
