THE GREATER BOG-PLANTS 173 



and all, are of a temper indomitably robust, able to look 

 after themselves anywhere, capable of coping with any 

 native weed, no less free and sturdy than their sister the 

 common Meadow-sweet. All they ask is a rich, cool soil, 

 like that of a damp meadow. They don't clamour for extra 

 moisture or bog-treatment, but revel in any such position 

 as the banks of a ditch. At the same time my visionary 

 wood-garden must be very careful how it admits the 

 Spiraeas into the neighbourhood of the great Lilies. For 

 the fiery orange and scarlet of the Tiger and the Panther 

 simply yell and squall, like furious Kilkenny cats, against 

 the chalky pinks of the Spiraeas. This colour, radiant 

 and clean, is the one weakness of the tall Meadow-sweets, 

 inasmuch as it is very reluctant to mix on equal terms 

 with any other. 



First and foremost of the big Spiraeas comes gigantea. 

 This is the ordinary Meadow-sweet multiplied by three, 

 an enormous tropical thing, waving wide plumes of 

 creamy-white at the top of eight-foot stems, clothed in 

 broad palmate leaves. In the pink form the flowers are 

 are of a pale, ineffective rose, but the type is incompar- 

 ably better, in richness and splendour of effect. Spiraea 

 gigantea, besides being as easy as all its kindred, has, 

 like Aruncus, a hearty readiness to seed itself about the 

 garden. 



Next comes, for old friendship's sake, the common 

 Meadow-sweet, gigantea's little sister, a native whom no 

 one need ever be afraid to admit, as, however freely it 

 grows, it never proves a stubborn usurper, nor makes 

 itself difficult to deal with. Lovely Spiraea palmata is 

 larger than ul/maria and smaller than gigantea, coming 

 about half-way between them, though in leafage and 

 habit it is nearer to gigantea. And its flower is far 

 more brilliant than either, being a flat plume of soft, 

 bright rose. However, palmata varies very much from 



