114 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



pleasure in a very rough place. The common Lathyrus 

 pratensis is a beautiful yellow pest; and then there is 

 a rose-red Lathyrus, possibly derived from tuherosus, 

 bought years ago from Mr. John Wood, that trails about 

 over my bushes in late summer, a coverlet of salmon-rose 

 sprays. The smaller red tuberosus I have grown too, if 

 it be still alive — that pretty little plant which is natura- 

 lised round Fyfield in Essex. Pubescens I once had seed- 

 lings of, but they very soon miffed off into a presumably 

 happier world where the bad plants go to ; and magel- 

 lanicus, I fear, is only an annual, though it was glorious 

 last year with its big sky-blue flowers. Surely it is the 

 same as what I saw many years ago at Cannes, called 

 Lathyrus azureus? I seem to remember the same huge, 

 winged seed-pods. Orobus and Thermopsis are close 

 cousins: Thermopsis with big orange or yellow flowers, 

 Orobus with blue, yellow, rose or white. Orobus (or 

 Lathyrus) vermis, our own native, is as beautiful as any 

 — blue and pink and green, all on one plant ; then there 

 are varieties — white, salmon-and-white, double-white, and 

 so on — all lovely. The nearest to this is niger, almost 

 indistinguishable, but interesting as being native to one 

 glen in Scotland. Then comes Orobus lathyroeides, and 

 the yellow luteus and the orange-tawny aurantiacus. 

 All these, and others too, are well worth having, and 

 very easy to grow in any open ground. Unlike the rock- 

 lovers and the general run of Southern Butterflies, Orobus 

 and Lathyrus, though disliking stagnant moisture, are far 

 more patient of ordinary open-border conditions than 

 most of their kindred. Thermopsis Jabacea and TTier- 

 mopsis rhombifolia are tall, stout Orobuses with green- 

 yellow flowers — the one European, the other North 

 American, and good for any place where they can have 

 room. But of this group (unless you can get hold of Lathy- 

 rus cyaneus) the best and finest are Orobus hirsutus, and 



