years, observing these directions faithfully. Every fall, after the
first frost--that frost which blackens his dahlias--let him cover
the crown of his _Gunnera_ with one of its own leaves. Pile some
stable-stuff over that, and then heap upon all the leaf-sweepings of
that part of the garden. Growth starts in mid-April and proceeds by
feet a week. Mine, which is about ten years old now, is thirty-five
feet in circumference, nearly twelve feet high, has flowers
two-feet-six in length, and in a hot summer has grown leaves seven
feet across. You can go under one of them in a shower of rain and be
as dry as in church. And all that done in five months. The plant is
a rhubarb of sorts and comes from Chili. I should like to see it over
there on the marge of some monstrous great river. In another order,
the _Ipomoea_ (Morning Glory), which comes from East Africa, runs it
close. I had one seed in Sussex which completely overflowed a garden
wall, smothering everything upon it. A kind of Jack's beanstalk, and
every morning starred with turquoise blue trumpet mouths of ravishing
beauty, which were dead at noon. The poor thing was constrained to be
a hierodule, gave no seed. Nature is the prodigal's foster-mother.

I have a plant whose seed is much more beautiful than its flower.
By the way, I have two, for the Spindle Tree is in seed, which has
a quite insignificant blossom. But the plant I mean is a wild peony,
which I dug up in a brake on the slopes of Helikon. It is a single
white whose flower lasts, perhaps, three days. It makes a large
seed-pod, which burst a short time ago, and revealed blue-black seeds
sheathed in coralline forms of the most absolute vermilion. You could
see them fifty yards away. It seems to have no purpose in life but
to pack the seeds--or perhaps, they are beacons for the birds. I took
pains to be beforehand with the birds, having no desire to see Greek
peonies in my neighbours' gardens. The seeds are safely bestowed,