THE GREATER BOG-PLANTS 189 



parts, who bulks large in many gardening books. The 

 plant is not easy to grow, uncertain in temper, miffy in 

 constitution, exacting as to climate, dependent on perfect 

 drainage and. abundant moisture. And when, after all 

 these stumbling-blocks have been surmounted, and you 

 at last succeed with the plant, as one year I had the 

 privilege of doing, you see a weedy growth like a poor 

 Gentiana asclepiadea, carrying very similar flowers, 

 trumpet-shaped, reddish outside and yellow within — or 

 the other way round ; I cannot really remember. In any 

 case I did not love it nor glory in it ; and when it 

 departed this life I did not replace it. Rhexia virginica 

 is a compatriot, a tiny marsh shrub, loving wet sandy 

 peat, and very gorgeous with its abundant large flowers 

 of purplish crimson. I imagine them like those of 

 Lagerstroemia indica on a small scale, clawed at the base. 

 The truth is that I have never seen mine in flower. The 

 plant has not done well with me, and when, one year, my 

 manager succeeded with a fine batch of imported clumps, 

 I was not there to see, and by the time I returned the 

 Rhexias had relapsed into their more normal state of 

 moribund sulkiness. In sunnier climates, with perfect 

 drainage, this will probably do better ; Rhexia mariana 

 is unquestionably half-hardy, hailing from more southerly 

 parts than virginica. 



A third American we have, of first-rate value for the 

 bog, either big or choice, in Lychnis haageana. This 

 comes readily from seed, grows willingly and freely, 

 though never obstreperously, and is perfectly trustworthy 

 and perennial. It loves the peaty bog, is tolerant of 

 abundant damp, and looks after itself from year to year. 

 It throws up rather weak, leafy stems to about two feet, 

 and then freely produces round cart-wheel blossoms of an 

 orange-scarlet more terrific than anything else in the 

 garden — even Gerbera Jamesoni. It varies in colour, it is 



