THE GREATER BOG-PLANTS 183 



age and roaming ground if the plant is to do well ; 

 though otherwise there is no sort of difficulty attending 

 its cultivation. No less easy, but rather less brilliantly 

 beautiful is the smaller, more numerous-flowered Arnica 

 Chamissonis that I collected in the Rockies and have 

 since found perfectly easy to grow, though not very con- 

 spicuously worthy of the trouble, by comparison with the 

 outstanding charm of Arnica montana. 



Now I no longer have any shadow of excuse, and must 

 soar downward again to my bog, resisting manfully any 

 peevish inclination to call it a slough. A quantity of 

 isolated species now claim garden-room and notice. 

 Already have I sung my song of gratitude and praise to 

 Anemone rivularis, TTialictrum aquilegifolium, Ranuncu- 

 lus aconitifoUits, and Gentiana asclepiadea. All these 

 must be throned piously in the bog, though the pretty, 

 cloudy white stars of the Buttercup do not deserve the 

 choice place that must be given to the lovely Anemone 

 and its contemporary Willow-Gentian, with the long 

 arching wreaths of sapphire trumpets, lightening up the 

 garden in late summer, and coping with the hot flame of 

 the Panther Lilies and their kin. The Buttercup takes 

 any amount of moisture, and is patient of a good deal of 

 shade. The others are not exacting, but will do best with 

 a little less of either. Campanula macrantha, too, the 

 enlarged version of our own giant latifolia, is a magnifi- 

 cent plant for some rough copsy corner at the outskirt of 

 the bog. It would be dangerous to admit this near select 

 quarters, but it makes a fine figure at the back of the 

 picture among ferns and lush foliage. Another rare 

 native and north countryman there is that I loved from 

 my early days, and still love, though with tears and 

 reluctance. The Melancholy Thistle stands apart among 

 its kind — though this, as far as I can see, is no reason 

 why it should be melancholy — in having no spines or thorns 



