Chap. III.] 



THE GARDEN OP PLANTS. 



59 



m 



was no 



singular and handsome Sacred Beans (Nelumbium) growing i_ 

 the open air. The whole is most satisfactory, with one exception 

 —that the director places out the greenhouse and stove plants in 

 summer to complete the natural orders in the beds. These poor 

 plants are stored pell-mell in winter in a great orangery, from 

 which they are taken out in early summer literally more' dead 

 than alive. They make a few leaves during the summer, and are 

 again put into their den to sicken or die. 



Here among the herbaceous plants growing on a rough old 



stake is a beautiful plant of Ivy, trained in a way suggestive' of 



what may be done with other Ivies in similar ways. Placed in a 



narrow bed here in the botanical arrangement there 



attempt whatever at making it 



" ornamental," and yet the result, as 



will be seen by the woodcut (p. 51), 



is more beautiful than if planted 



or trained on a wall. The noble 



leaves clothed the stake, and the 



shoots about the bottom began to 



wander over the ground in the most 



charming way, even here among 



these stiff and narrow beds, which 



seemed designed to destroy all beauty 



and individuality in plants. On a 



lawn it may be imagined how much 



prettier it would be. This is probably 



the best way of growing the finer kinds of Ivy. It would be 



difficult to imagine anything more beautiful than a group of 



pyramids, each of a different kind of Ivy, springing from the turf 



in some quiet corner of the garden. 



There is a Cedar of Lebanon, planted by Jussieu, to whom it 

 was given by the English botanist CoUinson. It is the first 

 Cedar ever planted in France. Beyond this there is not much 

 tree-beauty in the garden, though there are several new or rare 

 hardy trees, some of which have been drawn and engraved for 

 this book ; among them being Cedrela sinensis and Gleditschia 

 Bojoti, the last a lovely light-leaved weeping tree. 



An interesting object is all that now remains of a somewhat 

 remarkable tree which has stood for nearly three hundred years 



Sacred Bean in the open air. (^Vilmorin.') 



