178 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



For these are the Groundsels, and a larger race of duller 

 and more pernicious graceless weeds does not exist on the 

 face of the globe. In every age, in every clime, by every 

 race abhorred, the Groundsels, in their innumerable 

 ugly avatars, possess the wide earth to the exclusion of 

 the meek, its lawful heirs. Meekness is no virtue of the 

 Groundsels ; dowdy they may be, and most generally are ; 

 but where beauty occurs in the race, it appears with an 

 ostentatious arrogance that betrays consciousness of its 

 rarity. For there are beautiful Senecios, whose beauty 

 admits of no question. I name four — pulcher,jwponicus, 

 cUvorum, and Doronicum. It is true that japonicus is 

 ashamed of its cousinship, scorns the hated name of 

 Senecio, and lurks nowadays under the disguise of 

 Erythrochaete japonica. But not even this barbarous 

 blend of Greek and Latin can secure it from recognition. 

 Senecio it is and will be, with big leaves, round in design, 

 but deeply incised, and clusters of very large flowers of a 

 radiant, intense golden-orange, carried on stems two or 

 three feet high. Senecio japonicus is fine and briUiant 

 for the large bog, loving any deep, cool, rich soil, and its 

 one fault is a certain niggardliness in the matter of 

 flowering. 



But Senecio clivorum is the giant of the race, forming 

 in three years from seed a mass, six feet across and as 

 many high, of great rounded leaves on long stalks, and 

 countless stiurdy tall masts, adorned with many-flowered 

 heads of enormous orange blossoms. Like japonicus, 

 clivorum blooms through late summer and autumn, and is 

 of prime value for some high, bold point in any wood or 

 bog-garden whose extent is large enough to hold such a 

 Titan ; it is a ramping rooter, in deep rich soil, not 

 parched or dusty; is perfectly robust and hardy; and 

 never makes a weed of itself, but multiplies the number 

 of its crowns until it forms a big, centralised clump after 



