The Garden of British Wild Flowers. i8i 



Among the Medicagos there is a good deal of 

 coarse vigour ; but one of them, while not lacking 

 vigour, I have found a very lovely plant for large 

 rockwork or for the mixed border. M. falcata has 

 decumbent stems, and forms a dense, wide-spread- 

 ing mass upon the ground, the whole plant being 

 covered with yellow flowers. Now, if M. falcata 

 be planted on a rough rockwork, or any other 

 position from which it can let fall its luxuriant, 

 low-lying growth, it will prove a most ornamental 

 object, and is of an almost perennial duration 

 and great hardiness. Found only in southern and 

 eastern England. The other Medicks and their 

 allies possess some beauty, but scarcely sufficient 

 to warrant their garden culture, and all of them are 

 inferior to M. falcata. 



None of the Clovers or Trifoliums can be recom- 

 mended for garden culture, because the most 

 showy kinds are common in our fields ; and there- 

 fore whatever garden space we can spare for wild 

 flowers had better be devoted to things we are not 

 likely to meet with every day. Here again it may 

 be said that Trifolium repens is the true shamrock, 

 and has been so since the days of St. Patrick. 

 Some say that it is of comparatively recent intro- 

 duction to Ireland, but without either proof or 



