TUBEROUS AXD EHIZO^IATOUS FLOWERS. 



55 



most effective in large patches or small beds. The 

 Elegant Anemone, A. elegans, also from Japan, is more 

 robust than the preceding, and hardy. The Apennine 

 (with blue flowers), the ]S"arcissus-flowered (white and 

 yellow), and the Wood (white) Anemones, A. Apennina, 

 narcissijlora, and nemoralis, are pleasing ornaments to 

 the shrubbery and pleasure-ground. A. puis at ilia, violet- 

 blue, flowering in May in dry flinty ground, deserves both 

 mention and cultivation. 



Arum. — The Snake-root, A. dracunculus, or Dragon 

 Arum, is often found in old flower-gardens, and deserves 

 a place in modern ones. Its handsome speckled stem, 

 like a serpent's skin, bears, when in vigour, a remarkable, 

 large, dark-purple flower, which however is unsuited for 

 admission into the interior of the mansion on account of 

 its powerful carrion-like smell. Still, the Snake-root in 

 bloom is an object not to be passed without notice. Any 

 deep rather moist garden soil suits it, but it must not 

 be disturbed for division of the root or transplantation. 

 After those operations, it refuses to flower for a year or 

 two, till it has recovered its strength. The old herbal- 

 ists attribute wonderful virtues to the Grande Serpen- 

 taire, or Serpentine, as they call it. A. crimtum, or 

 onuscivorum, the Hairy or Fly-catching Arum, a native of 

 Corsica, produces in spring a central spadix surrounded 

 by a spathe, which is blotched with green outside, and 

 inside is lined with violet silky fibres inclining down- 

 wards, and in which are caught and held fast the flies 

 attracted by the cadaverous odour exhaled by this extra- 

 ordinary inflorescence. It rarely flowers in a pot, and 

 requires protection during winter in the open ground. 

 The "White-flowered Arum, Calla, or Bicliardia JEtkio- 

 pica, makes an elegant decoration to the edge of a pond : 

 but it must be treated as a pot-plant during winter. 

 Is easily propagated by division of the root, and requires 

 to stand in a pan always half-filled with water, except 

 during frost. 



Christmas Rose — Black Hellebore, Herbe de Christ 

 of old French writers^ Hellebores niger — produces its 



