190 



GARDEN FLOWERS. 



MEADOVy SWEET. 

 (SPIB;«A ULMARIA.) 



dropwort, grows three feet high, has fern-like foliage and 

 numerous double white flowers in summer. It is an old 

 and favorite plant. Then there is the 

 red flowering and fragrant S. lobata 

 or vemista, queen of the prairies, and 

 meadow-sweet, 8. JJlmaria, from Great 

 Britain and Northern Europe and Si- 

 beria, with fragrant white flowers and 

 from three to four feet high, loving 

 moist places and water-courses. There 

 is a pretty speedwell blooming long 

 in the summer-time. It is Veronica 

 amethystina, a better kind than gen- 

 tia/nfOides, twelve to eighteen inches high, and bearing 

 showy amethyst-blue flowers in pyramidal clusters. V. 

 longifolia, var. suhsessiUs, is, however, the best of the 

 speedwells, bearing a larger flower-spike and larger indi- 

 vidual flowers of a brilliant amethystine blue, which con- 

 trast finely with the rich green foliage. 

 It is Qne of the Japanese acquisitions 

 Ytbccq, filatnentosa \ie\.0T[i^9, to the sum 

 mer season,: with its tall spikes of bell 

 like flowers and strange tropical-look- 

 ing leaves suited for i-ockwoi'k. This 

 plant is hardly ein herbaceous plant, and 

 yet it seems to belong here i-ather than 

 among shrubs on account of the ap- 

 pearance of the great spikes of flowers. 



We come now to the fall-blooming, hardy, herbaceous 

 plants, which give us so much enjoyment during the 



GENTIAN LEAVED SPEEDWELL. 



(veronica gentianoides.) 



