130 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



terebinthmaceum. If any one is bold enough to order this, 

 they will find it handsome, with very tall stems carrying 

 big Helianthus-like flowers, while the leaves at the base 

 of the plant are fine and effective. However, it is not a 

 patch on a good Helianthus, I must confess. Of the 

 Sudbecleias I don't grow any more now — ever since I was 

 irritated by Lepachys columnaris, which had futile, pale 

 yellow daisies, with a silly sort of snout cocking up in 

 the middle. The Mulgediums or Giant Lettuces are very 

 splendid things though — to be admitted with caution 

 into the garden. The biggest and most robustious is 

 Mulgedium Plumieri, which nothing can hold in bounds. 

 He is a glorious wild-garden, or rough bank plant, de- 

 vouring yards and yards each season, and covering them 

 with big hairy leaves whose underside is rusty purple. 

 Then, in August, up go the stout flower stems six or 

 eight feet high, carrying heads of blossom like large 

 violet Dandelions. My thianshanicum is similar, but 

 bluer in flower, and much milder in growth, forming a 

 nice, neat, glossy clump, that never seems to spread about 

 or grow greedy. 



But the prettiest Mulgedium in my garden is Bourgaei, 

 which makes one dense crown that gets denser and denser 

 every season without any further spread. The abundant 

 flowers are smaller than those of Plumieri, and carried in 

 long lax sheaves. Their colour is of a peculiarly delicate 

 and beautiful rosy blue — very gentle and soft, yet quite 

 pure and decided in tone. Prenanthes is a quaint thing, 

 vaguely recalling a starved Mulgedium, but even more like 

 an Oat which, by some strange miracle, has developed 

 tiny violet flowers. This queer creature inhabits all the 

 Swiss mountain woods, and neither my manager nor I 

 profess any wild affection for it ; however, it deserves my 

 gratitude for the happy way in which it has taken 

 possession of a very barren place under a Laurus Tinus in 



