172 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



November, 1911 



5. Common fennel (Foeniculum officinalis), an herb long cultivated for its aromatic seeds and for the 

 young shoots, which are used for flavoring. It has yellow flowers 



but sweet cicely (Myrris odorata) has all 

 the delicacy of a fern. It has finely cut 

 foliage with an anise-like odor which is 

 pleasing to some. Whether this is the 

 myrrh of the Bible, or not, I cannot say. 

 But it is a fine plant for woodland walks. 

 It grows about three feet high and has 

 flat clusters of white flowers in early sum- 

 mer. 



I shall always remember the beauty 

 of sweet cicely by the water side at 

 Gravetye. There is a fine colony of it 

 also in Miss Kneeland's garden at Lenox, 

 under a willow by the pool. At Regent's 

 Park in London I saw a whole island covered 

 with it, and I feel unusually confident in 

 recommending this pjant to Americans who 

 have grasped the 'spirit of wild gardening. 

 This European species must not be con- 

 fused with the, ^SFeet-cicely" of American 

 botanies, as the- latter has a long, sharp 

 bur that penetrates one's clothing. Its 

 name is Osmorhiza: 



THE GIANT PARSNIP 



So far we have spoken mostly of feminine 

 types of vegetation — finely cut, delicate 

 plants. Now we come to a masculine 

 type, the giant parsnip shown in Fig. 4. 

 I am very glad to have an American pic- 

 ture of this, because it is a straw that shows 

 how the current is setting. Ten years 

 ago few, if any, Americans could have 

 seen any beauty in such a weed, but 

 Robinson's "Wild Garden" seems to have 

 freed a great many souls. I hope all my 

 readers can see as clearly as any architect 

 or painter the pictorial possibilities of a 

 plant with such rugged stems as these 

 towering to a height of eight to twelve 

 feet. 



Consider the bold leaves, two feet 

 long and nearly as wide, as rugged and 



pagan as the leaf of an acanthus. What 

 could be more masterful than the way in 

 which the flower clusters branch off! 

 These clusters are often a foot and a half 

 across and contain dozens of small white 

 flowers. It is doubtless the grandest of 

 all the unbel-bearers to use as a lawn 

 specimen or to mingle with tall shrubbery. 

 Ever since I devoured Richard Tefferies' 

 allusions to it I wished to see this virile 

 plant, and during my summer in England 



I rejoiced in the sight of it everywhere. 

 There were noble colonies at Regent's 

 Park. Mr. Fremlin uses it in great 

 quantity near the wooded entrance to 

 his home in Kent. 



There is enough of the spirit of a 

 Saxon pirate in an Englishman to ap- 

 preciate a rough character like the giant 

 parsnip. He uses bold plants in bold 

 ways, especially in large colonies on the 

 banks of rivers and lakes, where they attain 

 astounding size and great dignity. Sir 

 Henry Maxwell has a colored plate in 

 "Scottish Gardens" which shows how the 

 British understand the art of making 

 garden pictures with wayside weeds and 

 plants that are ordinarily despised. 



I know a worthy botanist who is bitten 

 by umbellomania. He spends a good 

 part of his life describing new species. 

 To him the great things in life are the oil 

 tubes in the seeds, the primary ridges, 

 intervals, and commissures. Such a man 

 sometimes fails to see the forest for the 

 trees. 



I care little whether any one ever 

 buys any of the plants I have mentioned. 

 But I do care if every one's eyes can be 

 opened to the glories which only the poet 

 and painter have hitherto seen. Ah, if 

 we could all free ourselves from the hard, 

 practical, matter-of-fact viewpoint long 

 enough to see every day a little of the won- 

 der and beauty of the humblest weeds 

 about us, how much happier we should 

 all be! 



And in the wild garden we have a 

 chance to create new wonders of form 

 and color, for wild plants often respond 

 admirably to the opportunity we give 

 them. 



A plant that mimics the foliage of a coreopsis — Peucedanum coriaceum. 



cover it would make 



What an exceUent ground 



