BRITISH WILD FLOWERS IN THE GARDEN. 



421 



lilies of the valley, and primroses ? And, should it possess an herbaceous 

 border even of the smallest dimensions, aconite, columbine, larkspur, and 

 snapdragon can always be relied upon to represent our obligations to our 

 native flora. True, these plants may not always represent the old type, but 

 then they are often beautified by garden improvements, as in the case of 

 our cornfield poppy, which repays a thousand times the care bestowed upon 

 it by the careful improvement and cultivation given it originally by the 

 owner of Shirley Vicarage Garden. 



Public Parks and Gardens. — May I be permitted now to deal with 

 British plants in our public parks and gardens ? 



There has been a great tendency of late years to increase the educational 

 value of these gardens by giving information as to the natural habitat of 

 trees and shrubs as well as the botanical name. This practice has not 

 escaped the criticism of representatives of the London Press, or rather 

 some of them, who take exception to the use of long names, and who 

 regard a well-written and probably correct label as waste of money. To 

 anyone who will take the trouble, on a quiet walk through one of the 

 public gardens where this practice prevails, to observe on a fine Sunday 

 afternoon, or even a weekday evening in summer, the conviction will be 

 borne in that it is not only students and gardeners who appreciate the 

 information given, but the general public are as interested in the native 

 country of the plants labelled as are those more directly connected with 

 gardening. This being so, I am the more inclined to urge the extended 

 use of our native trees, shrubs, ferns, and flowers as a means of intensify- 

 ing that interest in British plants which is common to nearly all towns- 

 people, and to show to those whose mode of life prevents them from seeing 

 much of the countryside, except perhaps for a few days once a year, some 

 of the more beautiful and interesting of our native wildings. 



Such a course would be of great service to those teachers who are 

 now taking special pains to give to the school children some form of 

 nature teaching, inasmuch as beds of British wild flowers growing in 

 some accessible part of an open space or public garden, properly labelled 

 with the correct British and botanical names, would give the young 

 people a far more correct idea of the plants than the cut specimens they 

 see only for the space of a short lesson. To see the plants growing 

 within a reasonable distance of the school would give them an insight 

 into the life-history of the plant, an advantage very difficult to estimate. 



It may, of course, be urged that many of our wild flowers are unsuit- 

 able for cultivation, and it is of course obvious that no good purpose 

 would be served in cultivating such common weeds as the chickweeds, 

 thistles, small Compositae, and plants with tiny, inconspicuous flowers ; 

 but, on the other hand, beds of such plants as Epilobium angustifolium, 

 Lysimachia vulgaris, and L. thyrsifiora, Lychnis Flos-caculi, L. vesper- 

 Una, Malva moschata and its white variety, Iris foetidissivia, Jasione 

 montana, and, in specially prepared beds, plants partial to peat, chalk, 

 and limestone soils, would enhance the enjoyment of the general public. 



From a purely horticultural point of view there is much to be said 

 for the course I am advocating, and I am quite aware that something- 

 may also be said against it ; this much, however, I may urge, that the 

 use of British wild flowers where practicable, either in beds, rockeries, 



