Hardy Exotic Flowering Plants 167 



Foxglove, Digitalis.— \X need not be said here that our 

 own stately Foxglove should be seen in the wild garden, in 

 districts where it does not naturally grow wild ; there are a 

 number of exotic species for which a place might be found — 

 some of them are not very satisfactory elsewhere. The most 

 showy hardy flowers of midsummer are the Foxglove and the 

 French Willow (Epilobium angustifolium), and in rough places 

 in plantations, their effect is beautiful. In such half-shady 

 places the Foxglove thrives best ; and, as the French willow 

 is too rampant a plant for the 

 garden proper, the place for it too 

 is the wild garden. It is a most 

 showy plant, and masses of it may 

 be seen great distances off. The 

 spotted varieties of the Foxglove 

 should be sown as well as the 

 ordinary wild form. 



Hemp Agrimony, Eupatorium. 

 — Vigorous perennials, with white 

 or purple fringed flowers. 

 Some of the American kinds 

 might well be associated with 

 our own wild one — the white 



kinds, like aromaticum and ageratoides, being beautiful and 

 distinct. 



Sea Holly, Eryngium. — Distinct and beautiful perennials, 

 with usually spiny leaves, and flowers in heads, sometimes 

 surrounded by a bluish involucrum, the stems of a fine 

 amethystine blue. They are handsome on margins of 

 shrubberies and near wood-walks, thrive in ordinary free 

 soil, and will take care of themselves among grasses and 

 all but the most vigorous plants. They often come freely from 



A SEA HOLLY ; Erynglam. 



