Subtropcal Gardening. 53 



Sedum spectabile. — This is one of the finest autumn flowering 

 plants introduced of late years, being at once distinct, perfectly 

 hardy, fine in flower, and pretty before it unfolds from its dense 

 bush of glaucous leaves. It is hardly large enough to be included 

 here, but is so valuable for association with the nobler hardy plants 

 in beds, for use around shrubberies, as a pot plant, a rock plant, or 

 a first-class border plant, that I cannot pass it by. When specimens 

 of it are fully exposed to the sun and air, and well-established — 

 which they become in a year or so — it is particularly fine, and 

 flowers till the season is just over, keeping company with the 

 Tritomas. It begins to push up its fat glaucous shools in the 

 very dawn of spring, keeps growing on all through the early 

 summer, and continues in a perfectly presentable condition. The 

 plant is known by the name of "fabarium " or " fabaria " in our 

 gardens, and that has caused some little confusion, as the true S. 

 fabaria of Koch is quite distinct from, and a very poor plant com- 

 pared with it. It was in the first place named fabarium by 

 M. C. Lemaire, but as this was likely to cause some confusion, 

 M. Boreau named it spectabile, which, considering its very noble 

 character as a Sedum, and the desirability of having a distinct name 

 for a plant so distinct, is on the whole the best. The plant is one 

 of the easiest to propagate and grow that has been introduced 

 to this country, and deserves to rank among the very best herbaceous 

 subjects. It is extensively employed in Parisian gardens. 



The Tkitomas. — So hardy, so magnificent in colouring, and so 

 fine and pointed in form are these plants, that we can no more dis- 

 pense with their use in the garden where beauty of form as well as 

 beauty of colour is to prevail, than we can with the noble Pampas 

 grass. They are more conspicuously beautiful when other things 

 begin to succumb before the gusts and heavy rains of autumn, 

 than any plants which flower in the bright days of midsum- 

 mer. It is not alone as component parts of large back ribbons 

 and in such positions that these grand plants are useful, but 

 in almost any position in the garden. Springing up as a bold close 



