36 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



to luck. I have lost many, and succeeded with a 

 few, and never yet flowered one. 



Camellia japonica will probably never reach, in Eng- 

 land, the huge, tree-like proportions it attains in Japan. 

 But it is an absolutely certain doer, almost anywhere, 

 perfectly hardy and requiring no sort of care or protec- 

 tion. It is more, of course, of a wild-wood tree than a 

 rock-garden shrub, but when well-developed, has a rare 

 magnificence, with its grey, smooth trunk, and its burden 

 of flame-like crimson flowers, single, golden-eyed, that 

 nestle amid the dark, glossy leafage. It is so one sees it 

 in the wood above the Shiba Temple-Tombs in Tokio, 

 and from the shade one looks down and notes how the 

 fierce sun beyond kindles each one of these fiery blossoms 

 to a ring of scarlet flame. For, in the type-form, the 

 blossoms, much harsher and hotter in colour, have the 

 same luminosity that you get in reticulata. I grow a 

 white form, too, YuJci miguruma, Snow-circle, which is 

 one of the purest and loveliest things I have ever seen. 

 Camellia japonica does not carry the individual flowers 

 for very long, and their tendency to drop when touched 

 has made the plant unlucky in Japanese romance, as it is 

 thus credited with an analogy to decapitation and sudden 

 death. 



Of the Daphnes I have already treated of the special 

 rock-garden species — cneorum, rupestris, and alpina. But 

 indica claims notice here, for its absolute, indestructible 

 hardiness. My plants hail from the Tokio Plain, and 

 have never quailed or blenched before the most awful 

 winters, though quite without protection. They grow on, 

 too, like weeds, in any soil, and I only trust they will one 

 day take it iijto their heads to flower as profusely as they 

 grow. The same rusticity could probably be proved of 

 Dauphini. Another valuable species or group is that 

 diversely named thing. Daphne fioniana, neapoUtana, 



