FLORA 



AND SYLVA. 



Vol. II. No. 14.] 



MAY, 1 904. 



[Monthly. 



LABOURS IN VAIN. 

 A recent visit to the gardens of the Ri- 

 viera of France leads us to think more 

 than ever of the vanity of attempting in 

 our climate the growth of plants and 

 trees for which it is absolutely unsuited. 

 Yet everywhere we see gardeners pro- 

 tecting plants and trees that can never 

 arrive at their true beauty in our climate. 

 It is too often forgotten that a plant or 

 tree may be alive and quite without 

 beauty of form. What does it avail to 

 see a stunted bit of Olive at the foot of 

 a south wall, or a fragment of Mimosa 

 in a like position, and when one sees the 

 many things admirably grown that a 

 climate like southern France allows to 

 reach fine vigour and beauty, our errors 

 in attempting anything of the kind are 

 more apparent than ever. The growth 

 of the past thirty years has made a won- 

 drous change on the Riviera, where we 

 may see Palms with stems like the pil- 

 lars of a Greek temple, and Gum-trees 

 well over 100 feet high, with Orange- 

 orchards in full bearing ; Bamboos 

 growing over 30 feet in a season, and all 

 the sub-tropical flora of Australia happy 

 in the open air. Going along the Cor- 

 niche Road much of this beauty may be 

 seen, the trees often set out in a stiff, hard 



way : but itis only when we go up into the 

 hills a little way, where the gardens have 

 a background of native trees and where 

 the woody dell or rock-bound site in- 

 vites or even compels some thought as 

 to design or grouping, that we feel the 

 wondrous value of the climate for the 

 growth of a noble and varied sub-tropi- 

 cal flora and the absolute error of at- 

 tempting in any way a like way of group- 

 ing in Britain — save where in sheltered 

 dells by the sea like Abbotsbury and 

 Caerhaes we enjoy like advantages. And 

 even where these rare opportunities oc- 

 cur we doubt the wisdom of attempting 

 the tropical. Even in the Riviera it is by 

 no means the most tropical things that 

 give the best effects, but rather where 

 the Olive trees, Heaths, and Heath-like 

 plants of Australia, Roses, Carnations, 

 and sheets of Violets give more familiar 

 and beautiful effects than Palms, how- 

 ever rare, or half the succulent plants of 

 Mexico. There is a real and subtle lien 

 between the land and the plants we may 

 grow in it, and the surest way here as 

 elsewhere to get the best effects would 

 be to give the bestplaces to the trees and 

 plants of the country or of countries 

 similar as to climate. 



And this brings us to the lesson for 



