56 ALPIiNES AND BOG-PLANTS 



way. And their bleeding is a symptom of annoyance too, 

 for Sanguinaria hates being moved and cut about and 

 worried. Give him a quiet corner under some deciduous 

 tree, and he will increase perpetually and multiply, send- 

 ing up early in April his pretty rounded leaves, veined, and 

 glaucous grey (they are, I do believe, the prettiest of all 

 leaves in nature; like a vine's, but rounder, more regular, 

 and smooth), and then, even before they are unfolded, 

 expanding his large snowy flowers, like nothing so much 

 as a pure white Celandine on a stalk about six or eight 

 inches high. 



Of the other Poppyworts I have little experience. 

 The Big Celandine is a weed in the upper valley of my 

 Old Garden; and the Jefilersonias, Stylophorums, and 

 Chelidoniums, or whatever you like to call tliem, have 

 never hitherto appealed to me veiy strongly, though I 

 weakened towards Styhphorum Japonicum when I saw 

 him blooming abundantly with Anemone trifolia in the 

 mountain copses on the way up from Nikko to Nantai- 

 San. But even Stylophorum japonicum is, after all, only 

 a glorified Chelidoniuminc0us,hv\\\iB.ut in flower, but rather 

 plebeian in growth. As for that common Japanese weed, 

 the gigantic plume-Poppy Bocconia cordata — well, it is a 

 weed here, too — and, for all its stately splendour, I 

 regret ever having admitted it, or any of its kind. 



But the essential glory of the Poppy family is Meco- 

 nopsis, a race scattered most of the world over, but con- 

 centrating its efforts in the Himalya. Our own country 

 has one, though, the delightful little Welsh Poppy, 

 which no one can be stern enough to keep out of the 

 rock-garden, although he knows how soon he will deplore 

 his laxity. For the Welsh Poppy is a dreadful weed ; 

 but then he is so very fascinating, and when the worst 

 comes to the worst, he is an easy plant to cope with. You 

 can grub him up fairly easily ; and, however thick your 



