PLANTS WORTH GROWING 135 
space a clump of Echinacea will occupy might 
better far be occupied by something else. The 
objections to this plant are that it is stiff and in- 
elegant in growth, and the colour of its flowers is 
rusty, faded plum-purple rather than rich crimson 
as it is sometimes described. True, it flowers late 
in Autumn when many plants have gone to seed, 
but there is no real dearth of flowers in a well-ordered 
garden at the time the Echinacea blooms. 
Echinops. — For the handsome steel-blue globular 
heads of the Globe Thistles we have naught but 
praise. Their glistening heads make a capital show 
in July and August, and if cut with long stems 
and hung in a cool airy shed to dry they will preserve 
their beauty to serve as Winter decorations. 
The plants do best in soils of a sharp gritty nature, 
and are particularly suitable for cultivation where 
chalk, gravel, or stones are prevalent. Propagation 
is best effected by means of root cuttings. E. ritro 
is one of the most serviceable, E. bannaticus, or 
ruthenicus as it is often called, is larger and taller, 
whilst E. giganteus and E. sphaerocephalus are 
huge white-flowered varieties. A very interesting 
hybrid quite recently introduced is a cross between 
bannaticus and giganteus. 
It retains the steel blue of the former, and attains 
even more noble proportions than either of its 
parents. Plants in our own garden reach a height 
of over nine feet, the much-branched stems being 
abundantly furnished with globes as large as the 
