HARDY EXOTIC FLOWERING PLANTS. 1538 
Peony.—Vigorous herbaceous plants, with large and splendid 
flowers of various shades of crimson, rosy-crimson, and white, well 
calculated for producing the finest effects in the wild garden. There 
are many species and varieties, the flowers of some of the varieties 
being very sweet-scented, double, and among the largest flowers we 
know of. Fringes of shrubberies, open glades in woods or copses, and 
indeed almost any wild place, may be adorned by them ; and they may 
also be advantageously grouped or isolated on the grass in the rougher 
parts of the pleasure-ground. I never felt the beauty of the fine 
colour of Ponies till I saw a group of the double scarlet kind flowering 
in the long Grass in Oxfordshire. The owner had placed an irregular 
group of this plant in an unmown glade, quite away from the garden 
proper ; and yet, seen from the lawn and garden, the effect was most 
brilliant, as may be imagined from the way in which such high colours 
tell in the distance. To be able to produce such effects in the early 
summer for six weeks or so is a great gain from a landscape point of 
view, apart from the immediate beauty of the flowers when seen close 
at hand. 
Poppy, Papaver, in var—The huge and flaming Papaver orientale, 
P. bracteatum, and P. lateritium, are the most important of this type. 
They will thrive and live long in almost any position, but the proper 
place for them is in open spots among strong herbaceous plants. For 
the wild garden or wilderness the Welsh Poppy (Meconopsis cambrica) 
is one of the best plants. It is a cheerful plant at all seasons ; perched 
on some old dry wall its masses of foliage are 
very fresh, but when loaded with a profusion of 
large yellow blossoms the plant is strikingly 
handsome ; it is a determined coloniser, ready to 
hold its own under the most adverse circumstances. 
Its home is the wall, the rock, and the ruin. 
It even surpasses the Wallflower in adapting itself 
to strange out-of-the-way places ; it will spring 
up in the gravel walk under one’s feet, and seems 
quite happy among the boulders in the courtyard. 
It looks down on one from crevices in brick walls, 
from chinks where one could scarcely introduce 
a knife-blade, and after all it delights most in 
shady Places, No plant can be better adapted recency 82 
for naturalising on rough stony banks, old quarries, some Lablates#adniir- 
gravel pits, dead walls, and similar places, and ably suited for the wild 
garden. (See p. 154.) 
