190 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



true, from seed, but all its shades are brilliant. Lychnis 

 fulgens and Lychnis grandtflora, its aboriginal types, have 

 never done anything much with me, nor has another 

 marsh Lychnis which has been reported beautiful — 

 Lychnis striata, also from Japan, which sounds like 

 another form of the fulgens group. Probably these two 

 wanted hotter summers than I could supply. 



The May- Apples, hardly bog-plants, rejoice in a rocky 

 nook within the influence of neighbouring damps, and 

 look beautiful peering from a cliiF in such elegant 

 company as that of exquisite Adiantum pedatum, the 

 hardy Maiden-hair from New Zealand, or of our own native 

 Maiden-hair, of every greenhouse and all our Western 

 coasts, if you are so fortunate as to establish it as a 

 hardy perennial beneath some overhanging ledge of rock. 

 The May-Apples are Himalyans, valuable purveyors of 

 medicine, apart from other plants in their strange growth. 

 Plump and juicy comes up the leaf stalk, then divides 

 into two branches, from each of which droops, and then 

 expands, a broad smooth'glossy leaf, which in peltatum is 

 roughly rounded, and in Emodi is of the same design but 

 deeply divided into lobes. These leaves, of brilliant 

 light green, are heavily veined and marbled with bronze 

 and violet, nor do they ever lose this conspicuous beauty. 

 Beneath the leaves, at the division of their pedicels, lurks 

 coyly a small white flower like a tiny Paeony ; in peltatum 

 these are rather inconspicuous ; in Emodi they are really 

 very charming when once you have discovered them. 

 Here, more or less, ends the tale of peltatum, but Emodi's 

 flower gives place to an enormous seed-pod of the most 

 brilliant vermilion, and a fine clump of this Podophyllum, 

 carrying a dozen stems or more, each bowed beneath this 

 weight of colour, is a splendid sight in early autumn, 

 though the birds are greedy to rifle its beauties. Though 

 peltatum also forms a pod, this enters into no sort of 



