BETWEEN DIANTHUS AND EPILOBIUM 113 



two wee seedlings I brought from Cannes a dozen years 

 ago have so prospered without protection that now they 

 are stately shrubs. Coronilla iberica is very different 

 from this — a true rock-plant, neatly trailing, with glau- 

 cous-green leaves, and bright, bright golden flowers. All 

 these are sun-lovers, for warm slopes and ledges — where 

 also our own native Hippocrepis comosa is quite as pretty 

 as anything the heart could desire. 



Of the Hedysarums I have smooth things to say. They 

 are willing and pretty and full of character (so many of 

 these Butterflies lack individuality). Hedysarum obscurum 

 is a dwarf plant, with silky clumps of leaves, and handsome 

 heads of crimson ; sibiricum and negkctum are similar, 

 but, I am told, and hope to see from my seedlings, even 

 prettier. Hedysarum multijugum is gracious and elegant, 

 a slight shrub with graceful foliage, and brilliant purplish- 

 crimson spikes ; and H. Mackensii is another shrubby 

 species from North America, whose growth, as my seedlings 

 show it, is very promising, and whose flowers are well 

 spoken of. All the species are of the easiest possible 

 culture anywhere, though one would not put them too 

 near the smaller, choicer Alpines. 



Orobus, Vicia, and Lathyrus have made a sort of 

 Witches' Cauldron of horticultural confusion. The 

 Vetches may be left aside, though Vicia canescens (or 

 something that has once borne that name) sounds very 

 beautiful, if it were procurable. The glorious purple 

 weed, too, Vicia Cracca, is a fine thing to have established 

 in a wild spare corner, and even more exquisite is the 

 frail, pale climber Vicia sylvatica, with spires of softest 

 china blue-and-white. This I once found rioting in a 

 glen near Scarborough, and collected seed of, but, alas ! 

 with no result. As for the rest, I have many seedlings 

 of new sorts, but, of course, am as yet unable to 

 decide on them. I grow Lathyrus latifolius albus with 



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