PLANTS WORTH GROWING 157 
with bicoloured flowers of deep salmon and yellow. 
Vemus is purple and blue, and there are various 
other colours, and all have charming foliage as well 
as flowers. The plants soon make good clumps, 
which may be divided when increase of stock is 
required, and in the front part of the border these 
dwarf plants with small pea-shaped flowers are 
very delightful. 
Liatris. — There is quaintness and beauty in the 
leafy spikes of closely-set fluffy flowers of Liatris, 
and the plants have one remarkable distinction, for 
whereas the general plan is for spiked flowers to 
open the bottom blossoms first and proceed toward 
the top, the Liatris starts to open from the top and 
works downward. L. spicata grows about a foot 
high. L. pycnostachya runs up to four feet or 
thereabouts, the flowering portion occupying half 
that length. L. graminifolia and its variety dubia 
have slender grassy foliage, and the flowers of the 
latter are very fine. The root of Liatris forms a 
corm-like crown which rather resents sodden soil. 
It is therefore advisable when planting in heavy 
soil to place some rough rubble or mortar rubbish 
well do\vn under the plants to ensure good drain- 
age. 
Lilium. — As with Irises, so with Liliums we must 
confess to inability, in a brief paragraph, to deal 
properly with a genus that embraces a host of 
wondrously beautiful flowers, some of which are as 
easily grown as the simplest of plants, others taxing 
