TUBEEOUS A>~D EHIZOMATOI'S FLOWEES 



63 



four plants. Of the latter, there is a variety with the 

 blossoms tinged with dull violet. Marvels of Peru are 

 mostly treated as tender annuals, sown under a frame on 

 a hotbed in spring, and planted out at the beginning of 

 June in a well-sheltered border, where they can bask in 

 the reflected* heat from a wall, and luxuriate in light 

 rich sound loam. But they really are perennials, form- 

 ing tubers, which may be taken up and kept like those 

 of Dahlias, to be replanted the following summer. For 

 those fond of powerful perfumes indoors, the Xight- 

 scented Marvel, grown in a pot, and brought forward by 

 bottom heat, would make an agreeable variety to the 

 ordinary list of odoriferous flowers. 



Monkshood — Aconitum. — A genus whose expulsion is 

 strongly recommended from all gardens, especially where 

 there are children and careless servants. The beauty of 

 the flowers does not rise above mediocrity, and is very 

 far from compensating for the danger of poison to be 

 apprehended. The yellow-flowered Monkshood is called 

 A. J y cod o nam, and Tue-Loup, which both mean Kill- 

 Wolf. The common blue species, A. napellus, or Wolfs- 

 bane, has not only poisoned pigs that have swallowed 

 fragments of the plant while amusing themselves with 

 the garden rubbish that has been thrown down to them, 

 but families have been poisoned by eating the scraped root, 

 by mistake, for horse-radish. A French lady stepped into 

 her garden, to listen for the church-bell to ring for mass. 

 Like the ploughman who whistled o'er the lea for want 

 of thought, a wandering mood of mind caused her to 

 pluck and nibble a bit of the nearest plant, whether 

 flower or leaf she could not afterwards remember. At 

 mass, she was taken seriously ill ; and, after a horrible 

 afternoon and night, got well in the morning. But she 

 no longer permits Chapeau de Pretre, or Monkshood, to 

 form one of her list of border-flowers. Authentic cases 

 might be multiplied.. Therefore, the directions here 

 given for the treatment of the Aconites, whether blue or 

 yellow, native or foreign, are to stub them up and bum 

 them to ashes. 



