106 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



where nothing else is wanted, but does not deserve any 

 choicer entertainment. The white Herb-Robert is a 

 charming little Albino, but a perfect brute for seeding 

 itself all over the garden ; and Geranium Lowi seems to 

 me nothing but an enormously-magnified, coarsened form 

 of the common Herb-Robert ; while Richardsoni, that I 

 had from the Rockies on high recommendation, is only 

 a weed, like a smaller, neater pratense, with nothing but 

 dull, whitish flowers, poorer than striata' s. 



Only botanical differences, really, separate the Stork's 

 Bills from the Crane's Bills. The Erodiums are a race 

 of heat-loving Southerners, which seem admirably 

 amenable to well-drained cultivation. They have no 

 very commanding brilliancy, but an extraordinary per- 

 sonal charm which puts them very high indeed among 

 rock-plants for a sunny corner. Their leaves are ferny, 

 finely-divided,' sometimes aromatic, sometimes silvery ; 

 their flowers, few at a time on long-stalked heads, are 

 generally in very delicate colours, and sometimes most 

 exquisitely painted and feathered. The only absolute 

 dwarf I know is the charming Erodium Reichardi, whose 

 proper name is said to be chamaedryoeides. As life, how- 

 ever, is short, I shall continue to economise it by speaking 

 of Erodium Reichardi. He makes the neatest, roundest 

 flat tufts of stalked wee heart-shaped leaves, and then 

 sends up, each on a two-inch stem, innumerable pure white 

 flowers, continuing all summer through. He comes from 

 Majorca, and I regret to say some of my plants seem to 

 have died in the open last winter, though the larger, 

 Levantine Stork's Bills are coming up as gaily as ever. 

 These are all exquisite, and all enjoy the same, well- 

 drained, dryish treatment, though even here they seem 

 as vigorous as Dog's Mercury. Clirysanihum has pale 

 sulphur flowers; guttatum, white and blotched; macra- 

 denium, pink and pelargonium-like, with patches and 



