64 BRECK’S NEW BOOK OF FLOWERS. 
these her treasures inhabiting and flourishing in the cracks 
of her wild mountain scenery, making it as interesting on 
a near approach, as it is astonishing at a distance. 
Near Boston there are several glens, on a small scale, 
where the naked rock is beautifully ornamented by the 
Columbine, the Thalictrum, (Meadow-rue) the Violet, 
ferns and many other plants of great interest ; they always 
appear to me more captivating in these their natural situa- 
tions than when formally planted in the parterre. ; 
In Europe, few gardens are considered complete with- 
out their compartment of rock work; and even where 
the spot is of the smallest size, a little piece of this device 
is frequently seen, filling up and concealing an ugly cor- 
ner; nay, in the immediate vicinity of large towns where 
the kitchens occupy the places of the cellars in this coun- 
try, the way down is sometimes metamorphosed into a 
rocky glen where Polypodiums, Aspleniums and other 
ferns flourish—one friend of mine near London has a 
place of this kind, where there is a collection of more 
than two hundred varieties of fern, many of them natives 
of this country, he writes to me—‘ This I have turned 
into a rocky glen, planted all over with every variety of 
fern I could collect, and there are about 200 of them, in 
the several interstices between one piece of rock work 
and another, all growing beautifully, and presenting -a 
singular and interesting contrast to the other surround- 
ing species of vegetation. I am quite sure that if any 
horticulturist who has the least feeling for the beauty of 
form were to see it, he would not be long without taking 
the hint ; the effect surpasses much what I expected.’ 
The nurserymen in the vicinity of Londonfrive a con- 
siderable trade in these rock plants, as they are called, 
and generally keep them in small pots in appropriate 
mould, so that they may be purchased and transplanted 
at any time of the year; so great indeed has been, and I 
