152 The Wild Garden 



so likely to find favour in gardens as the larger kind, and 

 therefore the wild garden is the home for them, and in it 

 many will admire their graceful habit and numerous flowers. 

 The kinds best worth growing are natives of the alpine 

 meadows of Europe. 



Alkanet, Anchusa. — Tall herbaceous plants, with numerous 

 flowers of a fine blue, admirable for dotting about in open 

 places in sunny glades in woods or copses. They mostly 

 come from Southern - Europe and Western Asia. A. italica 

 and A. capensis are among the most useful. The English 

 Anchusa sempervirens, rare in some districts, is an excellent 

 wild garden plant. 



Snapdragon, Antirrhinum. — The common Snapdragon 

 and its beautifully spotted varieties are easily naturalized on 

 old walls and ruins by sowing the seed in mossy chinks. 

 Antirrhinum Asarinum, rupestre, and molle do well treated 

 in the same way. Probably many other species would be 

 found good in like places. About two dozen species are 

 known, but comparatively few of these are in cultivation. 

 They mostly come from the shores of the Mediterranean. 



Columbine, Aquilegia. — Favourite herbaceous plants, 

 generally of various shades of blue and purple, white, and 

 sometimes bright orange. The varieties of the common kind 

 (A. vulgaris), which are very numerous, are those most likely 

 to be naturalized. In bare places in elevated and moist 

 districts some of the beautiful Rocky Mountain kinds would 

 be worth a trial. In "places where wild gardens have been 

 formed the effect of Columbines in the Grass has been 

 beautiful — the flowers group themselves in all sorts of pretty 

 ways, showing just above the long Grass. The tall and 

 handsome A. chrysantha of Western America is the most 

 hardy and enduring of the American kinds. The Colum- 



