MORE OF THE SMALLER BOG-PLANTS 255 



The Cardamines, again, the big Cuckoo-pints, are 

 handsome if large and stout — for a damp out of the way 

 place beyond the bog, where larger things have sway. 

 Bulbifera has fine fern-like foliage and loose spikes of large 

 pale purple cruciform flowers; enneaphylla is more 

 brilliant ; dlgitata is very free-growing and weed-like, 

 recalling an exaggerated Lady's smock ; and the double 

 form of this, Cardamine pratensis, itself, is quite a 

 pretty little creature, choicer than the others, free- 

 growing in any decent place, and coming not only abun- 

 dantly but faithfully from seed. But over nearly all 

 Crucifers lies the trail of the weed or the coarse vege- 

 table ; the giant cabbage Cramhe cordifolia, eight feet 

 across the vast mass of its rounded leaves, and send- 

 ing up to ten feet or more the snow-white fountain 

 of its innumerable little blossoms, is the glory of this 

 ugly race at one end of the scale, a fine, easy plant 

 for some very high point, in any good rich soil. At 

 the other end are the delightful miniatures, Morisia, 

 Iberidella, Petrocallis. And not unworthy of being 

 associated with these is the charming Cardamine tri- 

 folia, most choice for a cool shady place under the rock ; 

 forming a neat mass of very dark green leaves triply 

 divided and about three inches from the ground. From 

 this sombre carpet rise many six-inch spikes of large 

 flowers, brilliantly white, and arranged daintily upon 

 their stems. In earliest summer this plant lights up its 

 corner with a clear gleam recalling the fierce white light 

 that beats upon a throne. 



Parochaetus communis is a Himalyan, a strange ramp- 

 ing trailer, that by general ageement, thrives best with 

 damp treatment. In appearance its long, prostrate 

 shoots are exactly like those of some clover, but the big 

 blossoms are borne by themselves on long pedicels, and 

 are pea-flowers of a rich and faultless azure. This lovely 



