286 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
piece of land might well join the woodland we have just been contem- 
plating ; and passing from the wood we find ourselves in what was 
once a meadow unrelieved by any planting, but now presenting a 
picture of slow-moving streams with their banks clothed at intervals 
with slender vegetation rising in soft outline, widening here and there 
into pools on whose surface are floating many-coloured Water Lilies ; 
the skyline broken by the planting of Willows, whose graceful habit 
and soft colouring give an indescribable charm to the landscape. 
Here in these surroundings much planting can be done. Should there 
be any great expanse of water, places could be found for the giants 
of the water-side, such as the large-leaved Gunneras and Rheums, the 
semi-aquatic Reed Maces Typha latijolia and T. angusti/olia; the 
giant Reed Amnio Donax, which I have seen in September 16 feet 
high, and a few of the graceful Bamboos, Eulalias, and many others. 
Mention has already been made of the value of the Willows. They 
serve to give a height to the landscape and softness of outline. Salix 
vitelline/, aurea pendula should be planted freely, for a more beautiful 
tree in spring I do not know. The drooping branches seem to be 
involved in a mist of golden rain. The weeping White Willow is very 
beautiful, and possesses a picturesque outline of growth peculiar 
to itself. A few bushes of the Silvery-leaved Willow, Salix regalis, 
make a pleasing change, as does also the Rosemary -leaved Willow. 
Two dwarf Willows, used mainly for clothing banks and filling odd 
corners, are Salix purpurea nana, very pleasing in its purple stems 
and dense fine foliage, and Salix sericea pendula, with its downy 
grey -leaved procumbent stems reaching out over the water. The cut- 
leaved Alder (Alnus laciniata) and the similar foliaged Sambucus 
tenuifolia are both to be noted as fine. In reeds and rushes we have 
many fine plants. The large Typhas I have already mentioned, but 
you cannot do without the slender T. stenophylla and the tiny T. minima 
with its curious globe-shaped mace. The wild rice (Zizania latijolia) 
rises high in a corner with its Iris-like foliage, the rustle of which is 
always distinctive. I have never seen it in flower, though in September 
the tall spikes with handsome polished green stems begin to lift 
themselves, but never develop fully on account of the lateness of the 
season. Among the smaller-growing inhabitants of the water-side, 
both semi-aquatic and otherwise, will be found the sweet flag (Acorus 
Calamus) — how few know the f ragance of its leaves ! — and the Japanese 
variety, with its finely variegated foliage; the beautiful native 
flowering rush, with its pink cup-shaped flowers borne in umbels, 
the Galingale (Cyperus longus), a most distinct and ornamental plant 
at the water's edge, which, with its tall, slender, and aristocratic 
foliage (if I may use such a word in these democratic days), 
terminates in a spiked inflorescence of green and brown; the Bog 
Bean (Menyanthes), which reaches out over the water's surface and 
whose grey leaves and pink flower-heads form such a delight. I cannot 
mention everything, but we must not overlook the Giant Buttercup 
(Ranunculus Lingua grandiflorus), with its free growth and tall spike 
