144 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ August 16, 1883, 
In the cottage gardens around Hereford numbers of fine single and 
double self varieties of almost every colour are grown, and some have not 
been disturbed for years. I remember seeing a beautiful bed of the 
double scarlet variety in a cottager’s garden. The occupier informed me 
that he lifted them up every year when the foliage had decayed. Seeds 
may be gathered from all the varieties, and may be sown in pans or in 
the open ground in spring. If sowd in pans the plants should be kept 
. growing as long as possible, as the foliage decays. Keep them dry, and 
plant them out singly in November. A. apennina is a very pretty little 
blue-flowered species, and the Wood Anemone (A. nemorosa) should not 
be despised.—A. Y. 
IN THE BOGS. 
It was with pleasure that we read in the Journal of the wild 
Orchids grown by the Marchioness of Huntly’s gardener, and we can 
only hope that the example may be copied. Foreign lands in every 
latitude and longitude and at every altitude are ransacked for the 
plants they produce, while those of our own country are overlooked. 
To-day I gathered a bouquet of bog flowers of beauty no way inferior 
to those of numbers of plants imported at great expense. 
The first and most conspicuous was the Orchis maculata, and this 
was growing not only in wonderful profusion, but in endless variety, 
from almost pure white to deep red-purple. Some "were banded 
transversely, some longitudinally, the majority in both ways. Numbers 
were not banded at all, but simply speckled and spotted. Some had 
leaves deeply barred and blotched with black, and others, again, were 
nearly green. A dozen or two of the best of these I gathered and 
basketed in sphagnum moss. Interspersed with these are some of 
the greenish-tinted white Orchis, gathered from a damp bank. 
Though not very showy, this white scents our room when ihe shades 
of evening fall with an odour not surpassed by that of the most 
exquisite exotic. And darkening all are a few spikes of the velvety 
0. pyramidalis. It would be difficult to surpass that rustic basket 
with its sphagnum-lined, Sundew-carpeted, Orchid-stocked profusion 
of blended colours and odours. 
Almost past now, but when in bloom one of the handsomest of 
flowers, “ decked with frills and furbelows,’' and beautifully coloured 
with faintest pink on a snowy ground, is the Bog Bean, and on 
the banks near by grows the most lovely of British Forget-me-nots 
(Myosotis palustris). Bewildering in variety, with every change of 
position, are these Forget-me-nots ; but no variety and no species in 
any position is so lovely in its tender blue as is the one whose 1 o ne 
is in the bogs. 
These are not glowing, glaring beauties ; but, as if providing for 
all tastes, early in spring the wet marshes seem almost as if on fire 
by their display of Marsh Marigold. Even now the moss beneath the 
feet seems tinted with the dull red of smouldering embers, but it is 
only a profusion of that little plant with a history—the Drosera 
rotundifolia. Near by, w'here a bank of mud has been deposited by 
the mountain stream that just now sings dreamily in the hot sunlight, 
when overfed with pouring rains and melted snow on the heights 
above, another neat little “Beef-eater” swings its Violet-looking 
flowers in the June air—the Butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris). 
Here in the dry trench dug to drain the bog, are patches of the 
Ivy-leaved Banunculus ; and near by, in the stream, is its near 
relation, the aquatic Ranunculus, forming “ trout beds.” And here, 
where earlier the Bluebell or wild Hyacinth tried to make amends 
for the fading glory of the Wood Anemone, and where the towering 
Foxglove rears his head are now indescribable myriads of graceful 
Grasses and wild Ferns, forming a garden, wild and unkempt it is 
true, but jdelding a soothing influence that hard-drawn lines, hard- 
-cut lawns, formal shrubs, and foreign flowers crammed in masses, 
banish. We might speak of the handsome Heaths and shining 
Stitchworts, the Bluebells, Queen of the Meadows, Valerians, numerous 
Woodruffs, Golden Saxifragas, and hundreds beside, but that would 
only be a matter of multiplication. By the wayside, the hillside, the 
side of the brook, in the pools and in the bogs of our own land are 
growing beauties that have too long blushed unseen; but the time is 
coming soon, as we hope, when many of the now neglected British 
plants shall find a place in cultivated gardens.—S. H. 
MECONOPSIS WALLICHII (THE BLUE POPPY). 
This handsome Meconopsis is remarkable as being one of the very 
few plants, if not the only one, of the order with blue flowers. It was 
•discovered in the Sikkim Himalaya by Dr. J. D. Hooker, who sent seeds 
to the Royal Gardens, which produced flowering plants in June, 1852. 
The plant attains the height of 2^ to 3 feet, and is everywhere of a pale 
glaucous green, covered with long reddish bristle-like hairs. The root- 
leaves are very large, often 12 to 18 inches or more long, stalked, and 
much lobed and cut. The stem-leaves are small and without stalks. 
The flowers are rather numerously produced from the axils of the upper 
stem-leaves, on short drooping peduncles, and are of some size ; the ring 
of yellow stamens round the seed vessel contrasts charmingly with the 
blue colour of the petals. The seed vessel is more elongated than in the 
true Poppies, and is densely clothed with erect bristle-like hairs or setse ; 
the stigmas are elevated on a thick cylindrical style as long as the ovary, 
as shown in our figure. 
In Meconopsis Wallichii and the other species of this genus the capsule 
opens when ripe by six or seven valves at the top of the style, which 
appears to be rather a mere elongation of the ovary than what is gene¬ 
rally understood to be a true style. The numerous seeds are arranged 
on thin "membranaceous plates, radiating from the inner walls of the 
capsule. 
It is regretable that this beautiful plant has been found so difficult of 
culture in England, and if it could be obtained in similar proportions to 
some shown in one of Miss North’s admirable paintings at Kew it would 
be a grand ornament for our gardens. 
A LONDON GARDEN. 
“ Plants and flowers will not flourish in London ” has almost become 
an established fallacy, and would have been entirely so had it not been 
for the splendid examples of flower gardening in the parks and the most 
beautiful window boxes in the kingdom that may be seen every day in the 
summer in some of the prominent thoroughfares in the metropolis, where 
the affluent locate themselves during the butterfly season. 
There are also some attractive gardens in London, necessarily not 
Fig. 27.—Meconopsis Wallichii. 
large, yet undeniably enjoyable, and most creditable to the owners and 
their gardeners. One of the best of these undoubtedly—if not, so far as 
regards keeping, the very best—is the enclosure at Alpha House, the 
residence of Captain A. L. Patton. This is a true town garden, as it is 
within rifle-shot of Baker Street station on the Metropolitan Railway, 
and it may be said without fear of contradiction that there are few 
gardens, even in the country, more variedly attractive, enjoyable, and 
more admirably kept. The lawns and walks are as perfect as they can 
be, the herbaceous border richly furnished, the flower beds bright, the 
Grapes excellent, and not a weed can be found in the enclosure. 
The enclosure is an oblong of about 2 acres, the central portion lawn 
with splendid Weeping Ash and a few other deciduous trees; the side 
borders, of a length of from 200 to 300 yards, and from 10 to 30 feet wide, 
being occupied with herbaceous plants, brightened with summer flowers, 
and margined with Golden Feather. The end, an oblong of some 60 by 
20 yards, is a bulb garden, and how many thousands of bulbs are planted 
there he would be a bold man to estimate. The beauty of these are, of 
course, over, the only flowers being a bright residue of a splendid named 
collection of English and Spanish Irises; but flowers can be cut from the 
mixed border in basketfuls, and it is quite certain that plants well managed 
will thrive in London. 
Shrubs are also planted in the border for effect in winter; but there 
are only four or five kinds that succeed the best in towns—namely, 
Aucubas, Rhododendrons, Hollies (mostly variegated), Rhododendrons, 
and Variegated Box, with a few of the pretty green upright-growing Hands- 
