186 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



importance. Any cool moist soil, in peat or loam, will 

 please the Rodgersia, and it does not enjoy exposure to 

 torrid sunshine. The same remarks apply to the new 

 pinnata, with dainty graceful spires of Spiraea-like 

 bloom, either white or pink, and to the still newer and 

 rarer tabularis. 



I have no strong affection for the Megasea Saxifrages, 

 such as ligulata and afghanica — leather-leaved, large 

 things, with coarse flat heads of pink or white. But 

 Saccifraga peltata reigns a queen by bog and lakeside, 

 and I greatly wonder that I have not already paid it 

 my heavy debt of gratitude. Saxifraga peltata hails 

 from California, and yet is of the most imperturbable 

 hardiness and vigour. Its gnarled, knotted root-stock 

 goes crawling about over the bare rock at the water's 

 edge, suggesting the tentacles of the octopus, combined 

 with the wrinkly blackness of an elephant's trunk. From 

 the round green knob in which each wandering tentacle 

 ends, there rises in early spring, on a tall bristly pink 

 stalk about three feet high or so, a shower, like a 

 spreading rocket, of innumerable rosy stars. Then the 

 flower dies, and up break the splendid leaves in abund- 

 ance — large, palmate, brilliant, having something of the 

 Nelumbium's beautiful cupped design, though glossy- 

 green, hispid and incised. They are carried high, some- 

 times to the height of a man, and in a few seasons one 

 plant will form a mass in which cowering Monmouth 

 might have found better covert than among his cabbages 

 — or was it barley ? Then, in autumn, each broad um- 

 brella fades into russet, orange, scarlet, violet ; and so 

 droops and pales at the approach of winter. So vigor- 

 ous and so beautiful is this Saxifrage that one's only 

 peril lies in using too much of it. It should certainly be 

 established everywhere, as it will look after itself among 

 the roughest weeds of the woodland and the water-side. I 



