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those visitors who, by bitter experience, you know to be 

 such as will subsequently explain that the gardener forgot 

 to plant them, or the maid forgets to water them, or some 

 similar excuse for that neglect, which would make the 

 giver "wild" had he entrusted them with something 

 "rich and rare." Of a lower type of vegetation than 

 Ferns are the various species of Marchantia or Liver- 

 worts, which do their best to cover the surface of the soil 

 with a dense mass of overlapping verdure. These are 

 very beautiful botanically considered, and their various 

 forms of fertilization are interesting, some like tiny turn- 

 stiles, some with fluted domes or stalks, some with shallow 

 cups filled apparently with tiny green eggs, and so on. 

 These, however, can form so thick a mat over, for instance, 

 the soil in the pots and pans of Polypodies as to practically 

 imprison the rising fronds, and consequently have to be 

 cleared away from time to time. Another, and this is 

 really a pest, is the common Oxalis acetosella or Wood- 

 sorrel, which sends its slender tough stolons in all 

 directions, and if left alone will so tie up even the crown- 

 forming ferns as to hinder development seriously. Its 

 seedlings come up all over the place as the plant, Balsam 

 fashion, has explosive seed vessels, and shoots their 

 contents when ripe far and wide. Another weed is 

 Sibthorpen europea, a delicate creeping plant, which can hardly 

 be debited with much damage, and indeed festoons the pots 

 and pans so prettily with its light coloured small leafed 

 foliage that we usually leave it alone. Of this there are 

 three varieties, green, golden, and a variegated white and 

 green, which, however, is too delicate to hold its own, and 

 has only repaid repeated introduction by persistent dis- 

 appearance. Another of like harmless kind is a Sela- 

 ginella, which sows itself and spreads and forms a pretty 

 adjunct without any tendency to over self-assertion. 

 Occasionally, of course, the common outside weeds are 



