About equally common with the two weeds' I have last mentioned, for it is recorded in a hundred botanical districts, is the Spear Plume Thistle (Carduus lanceolatus), which, similarly, came unasked into my garden. But though it is perhaps the most stalwart and formidable-looking of the enemies of the gardener and agriculturist, attaining oftentimes a height of four feet and upwards, I always admired its singularly effective armour, for it is fully armed at all points—its prickly heads of blossom each crowned at the apex by the purple plume which gives its name to the plant. I never dreaded this handsome plant, and it never undesirably encroached upon my garden wild.

I have not space in this chapter to mention all the 'weeds' which grew in my garden. I have named, however, the most prominent and conspicuous, the boldest and most persistent, and let me frankly confess my predilection-the most welcome of them all.

XIII.

OTHER FLOWERS I GREW.

To write a full and complete history of my garden wild. within the compass of one small volume would be impossible. In the preceding chapters I have indicated and given some description of some of the most prominent of the plants I grew in it, giving or endeavouring to give precedence to the best known and most plentiful. I have enumerated them as nearly as possible in the order in which they were introduced, for my garden, in its complete state, took a considerable time to establish. But from beginning to end the work of making it afforded me delightful occupation. It will be supposed that I was continually adding to my stock of plants, never losing an opportunity, on the occasion of a visit to the country, of bringing in something fresh. It was in this manner that I obtained the flowering plants which will be found briefly mentioned in this chapter. I shall not refer to them in the particular order in which I introduced them, but shall, in a

general way, and for the convenience of my readers, give them very much in the order in which they will be found in botanical lists where plants are arranged according to what is known as the Natural System. The excellent 'London Catalogue' of Mr. Hewett Watson is such a list; and that will be the order, or nearly so, which will be followed in the immediately succeeding pages. Whilst giving prominence to the most abundant species, I occasionally introduced somewhat rarer plants; but there were none in my garden that could not be found in at least about half of the botanical districts of Great Britain.

The Common Meadow Rue (Thalictrum flavum) I put on the borders of my stream, for it loves a damp habitat and grows on river and brook margins to a height of from two to five feet. Its leaves are bi-pinnate with leaflets bright green and shining and threelobed, each lobe being deeply indented. The flowers are pale yellow, and grow in crowded and pyramidal panicles. The Meadow Rue is recorded in sixty-one botanical districts. It will grow in any soil.

The Mountain Globe Flower (Trollius europaeus) may be found from six to twenty-four inches in height. It has leaves not unlike the spread fingers of a hand, each segment or division of the leaf being wedge-shaped and deeply cut in or indented. The yellow petals of

the large blossoms, varying in number from five to ten, are converged into the form of a globe, and hence the common name of the plant. Its habitats are moist fields in mountainous districts, and I put my plants on the upward slopes of my grass banks, mixing some peat with the actual soil of the banks to provide for the moisture of the situation. The Globe Flower grows in fifty-six botanical districts.

My Water Lilies I planted at the end of my garden where I had extemporised a marsh, as already explained, in connection with my stream, and had thus preserved the freshness of the still water by preventing stagnation. Here I placed the White Water Lily (Nymphaea alba), whose great, rounded, heart-shaped leaves are sometimes. a foot in diameter, and float on the water's surface. The size and magnificence of the pure white flowers, borne singly on long, round stems, and sometimes as much as five inches across, seen as they usually are resting upon and contrasting with the great green succulent leaves, can be unfamiliar to few persons who, as anglers or merely as pedestrians, have wandered by the margins of still ponds or sluggish rivers. Nymphæa alba is found in sixty-nine districts.

The Yellow Water Lily (Nuphar lutea) is more widely distributed, and occurs in seventy-eight districts. Its leathery, large, oval, bright-green leaves, heart