MORE OF THE SMALLER BOG-PLANTS 



wonderful sad deep shade of plum-colour, which, by 

 itself, is haunting and subtle enough in all conscience, 

 without any sickliness or indefiniteness of tone. But 

 the colour of the Primula, rich and dainty pink, is of 

 precisely the shade to fulfil and double the attraction of 

 the other. And the two plants together in mass form a 

 picture more perfectly satisfying, I verily believe, than 

 any other floral harmony that I have ever seen — except 

 perhaps that of delicate, butter-coloured Tulipa Batalini 

 among the lavender stars of Anemone robinsoniana. 

 Bartsia alpina is a rare native of our northern mountain- 

 bogs ; you will meet it here and there in Westmoreland, 

 round Malham Cove, and in all the streamlets of Upper 

 Teesdale ; I have never found it easy to establish, and 

 have, at times, suspected it of some morbid tendency in 

 the matter of its root-system, so delusively simple is it to 

 collect and plant. Anyhow, for the bog-garden, it is a 

 case like Mrs. Allen's vain longing for acquaintance — 

 ' Despair of nothing that we would attain ' ; and, may I 

 add, 'Unwearied diligence our point will gain.' But I 

 think I had better say ' may,' with all due respect to the 

 Divine Jane, and the edifying unknown authority — was 

 it a copy-book ? — from which she quotes. 



Besides AnagaUis and Bartsia, our own marshes give 

 us some valuable things. For the common bog- Asphodel, 

 Narthecium ossifragum — the ' Bone-breaker,' because its 

 glow deludes you into sloughs where you break your legs 

 — with its sturdy stout spikes of golden yellow, and its 

 little swordlike growths of leafage, like a wee Iris, is good 

 and very easy for any rougher corner in damp, heathy 

 soil. Very much smaller, choicer, and less brilliant is 

 Tafieldia palustris, a rarity which, like so many other 

 rarities in England, makes one in the aristocratic band 

 that turns Upper Teesdale into the Almack's of British 

 plant-life. Tofieldia is like Narthecium in growth, but 



