126 
FLORA AND SVLVA 
should be well chosen in the warmest part of 
the garden, and the ground carefully prepared. 
It is seen at its best only in good and deep 
soils, apart upon lawns, or grouped upon dry 
banks where there is nothing to fear from 
stagnant moisture. Even with protection at 
the root, very severe winters are sometimes 
fatal to it upon cold soils, but under glass the 
silvery plumes will last for nearly a year and 
such pot-plants may be used with the best effect 
in rooms and entrance-halls. Increase by seed 
or division, using good loam or peaty soils, 
with abundance of water during summer. This 
beautiful Reed is found only in New Zealand, 
growing in wet places, where it was found by 
the botanists accompanying Captain Cook on 
hisfirst voyage. In former times its leaves were 
used by the natives in weaving a coarse matting 
with which they lined the walls of their huts. 
Giant R eed of Provence {Arundogiganted) . 
— A fine grass found here and there in the south I 
of France, but nowhere common. Though 
classed as a distinct species by some botanists, 
for garden purposes it may be considered as a 
distinct form of Ariindo Donax ^^n]\\q\\ it equals 
and even surpasses in height, the stems being 
slighter and far more densely leaved. It flowers 
more regularly too than that kind, with long ' 
narrow plumes of a paler silky-grey appearing 
a little later. This plant thrives only with its | 
roots in shallow water, and is found in the low 
marshlands between the mouths of the Rhone 
and the Spanish frontier, and most freely at 
the lakes of Salces between Narbonne and 1 
Perpignan. 
The African Reed [Arundo madagascari- j 
ensis) . — A tall Reed from the warmer parts of 1 
Asia, Africa, and Madagascar, and conse- j 
quently tender in this country. Its woody stems 
of I o to 20 feet bear feathery plumes, similar in , 
shape and texture to those of the Pampas Grass. 
Great Algerian Reed [Arundo 7nauritan- 
Icd). — A plant from the southern shores of the 
Mediterranean and in general too tender for ' 
the open air with us. It is sometimes grown i 
with aquatic plants under glass, as in the water- 
lily house at Kew, but is rarely met with save 
in such collections. Its canes are slighter and ' 
shorter than in Arundo Donax, with flat leaves 
of greyish-green and narrow heads of flower 
nearly 2 feet long at their best, and stiffly i 
• rounded like a fox's brush. These plumes come 
later by some weeks than in other kinds, and 
j are only seen under glass in this country, where 
i they last for months in good condition. Tufts 
are sometimes planted in the open upon our 
! southern coast, and so treated the leaves are 
apt to come prettily variegated with white, 
the normal colour coming back if the plant 
is again taken inside. 
The Common Reed [A. Phragmites) . —The 
j tallest and most graceful of British Grasses, 
reaching a height of 8 to lo feet in places and 
soilswhereit isthoroughly athome,butoftener 
from 4 to 6 feet beside streams or moist ditches. 
Its appearance is too familiar to need descrip- 
tion, nor has the plant much to recommend it 
except while bearing its spreading heads of 
j dull purple in the autumn. Growing thickly 
on the margin of large sheets of water, its 
colour is then not without effect, while the 
tall stems afford good cover, and the roots 
help to fix soils that are soft or shifting. A 
more useful plant for gardens is a finely varie- 
gated form, of good growth, and pretty at 
the waterside. B. 
Fuchsias at Killarney. — The air is mild 
and balmy, never really cold, and the winters 
are such only in name ; indeed, the freshness 
of shrub, tree, grass, and flower, all the year 
round, is so remarkable t hat spring may be said 
never to be entirely absent from this favoured 
region. The most obvious proof of what the 
climate is may be gathered from the Fuchias. 
These run wild in lovely, unrestrained riot. 
Not solitary plants in pots, or carefully tended 
and kept free from weeds in cultivated gardens, 
taken in in the winter and coddled up in green- 
houses. Grand, freely flowering masses of 
bloom,— 6, lo, and even more feet in height. 
Bushes of them as large as fair-sized Elder 
trees. Hedges of them — as in the Kylemore 
Pass — literally miles long in two converging 
lines of startling bright red, to drive between 
which is an experience alone worth a pilgrim- 
age to Connemara. Garden boundaries marked 
out by trees laden with the four-petalled crim- 
son crosses, enclosing the inner whorl of regal 
purple and the turkey-red stamens, glowing 
cheerily from every crevice in the walls and 
from every ditch-side. — Good Words. 
