274 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



narrowness of petal, and its habit of sitting close upon 

 the leaves. Trillmm erectum and Trillium styloswm are 

 dull, to my taste, and dowdy, — pink and purple. Trillium 

 erythrocarpum is a tiny jewel, delicate and rather difficult, 

 small, with snow-pure flowers, like miniatures of grandi- 

 florum, but with a blotch of blood-crimson at the base 

 of each segment. This requires attention on the choice 

 peat-bed, but all the others thrive in any open woodland 

 soil, free and moist, luxuriating in the filtered light of a 

 thin copse or hollow in the woods. However, the Wood- 

 lilies, blooming in May and June, though lovely by the 

 water-side, are perhaps more glorious still for the lily- 

 bank and copse and rockwork. They have great resisting 

 power, too, for I remember seeing one in Hokkaido — 

 probably Trillium secundum, a small version of grandi- 

 Jlorum, coping successfully with the roots of Bambusa 

 Veitchi. The Bamboo covered the country by the mile, 

 and not a square inch of soil can have been free of its 

 roots. Yet everywhere amid that two-foot jungle were 

 visible the white stars of the Trillium, quite unsubdued 

 by the rambling growth of the Bamboo. This, however, 

 must not be literally presumed on in the garden. Except 

 into the wild garden there is not a Bamboo that can be 

 trusted — making an honourable exception for Maocimo- 

 wiczii and erecta, graceful and effective, like Pampas and 

 stripe-leaved Eulalia zebrina, at the edge of the water. 



Now dive we into the depths of the pond itself. From 

 two to three feet is the happiest depth for beautiful Pon- 

 tederia cordata, with broad, splendid leaves, and tall spikes 

 of blue flowers that unfold too late in the season to be of 

 any use to me. The Pontederia will also grow in shallower 

 water, but one wants to avoid, as far as possible, the peril 

 of frosts. The same applies to the even more splendid 

 and tropical Thaleia dealbata, which is hopeless for my 

 climate, and to the common Arum of the greenhouse. 



