KANUNCULACEAE 49 



CHAPTER III 



Eanunculaceae, iSapatecateae, Cruciferae 



I AM tired, I declare, of waiting for my herbaceous 

 Clematises to bloom. I had integrifolia and Fremonti 

 from seed, under promise of splendours to come ; yet 

 though I have nursed them for years I have never seen a 

 bloom. Erecta, though, and the larger heracleaefolia 

 are fine, handsome herbaceous plants, leafy and large, 

 with abundance of flower-clusters, like masses of wee 

 blue Hyacinths. As for the large climbing species of 

 this notable race, they have no place in the rock-garden, 

 unless you have a vast space to cover, and trees for them 

 to make a jungle of. This is just where both my gardens 

 fall short, so that I have never, except in the ordinary 

 garden, been able to use beautiful things like Ckmatis 

 grata, Henryi, tangutica, Viticella, JacTcmanni, and 

 lanvginosa, all of which should make a foaming back- 

 ground of white and gold and violet to the huge block- 

 built rockery that slopes up to a brow of coppice or 

 wood. However, if I lack Clematis, I have Atragene; 

 and Atragene is to all practical purposes indistinguish- 

 able from Clematis. My plants of the American Atra- 

 gene verticiUata are yet but young ; the European Alpina, 

 however, gives me more and more delight every year. It 

 is a slight trailer, and I have found it, in seed, meandering 

 among the bushes in the Maritime Alps, just below the 

 level of the Primulas. In early summer it produces 



