14 FAMILIAR GARDEK FLOWEMS. 



and often, of course, are the result of some happy 

 accident. But there are cultivated amateurs who ap- 

 preciate such things and form collections, and find 

 therein delights that are certainly different and doubtless 

 higher in tone than a mere following the fashion would 

 afford, unless, indeed, it became the fashion to render the 

 garden truly representative of the infinite variety and 

 beauty of the vegetation of the world. The subject before 

 us illustrates the case. You may find the scarlet avens 

 and perha])s two or three sorts of potentillas in the country 

 garden, and yon may, again, find them in the garden of the 

 eclectic collector ; but in the garden " of the period," where 

 carpet colouring, and evergreens clipped into round balls, 

 are prominent features, such things are utterly unknown. 

 The earth is plentifully furnished with beautiful plants, 

 and it is a matter both for surprise and thankfulness that 

 an immense proportion of the happy throng may be grown 

 to perfection in our gardens. The species of geum that 

 have been introduced to this country as hardy plants, 

 adapted for the open rockery and border, number over 

 thirty, and they are natives variously of North America, 

 Chili, Kamtschatka, Russia, Volhinia, the Alps, the 

 Pyrenees, the Carpathians, and the hills of Greece. That 

 very few of them are now to be found is no fault of the 

 plants, for if they were all re-introduced and displa^^ed 

 with judgment, they would be found as beautiful as 

 ever, and as fully as ever entitled to reproach men for 

 their perversity in neglecting the simplest and cheapest 

 and most lasting and ever-changing of all garden pleasures. 

 The avens is a rosaceous plant, and the pietui'c might 



almost pass as representing a rose from the hedgerow. 



We have two wildings of the tribe — the common avens 



