ERYNGIUM OR SEA HOLLY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19970, 11 December 1926, Page 3

ERYNGIUM OR SEA HOLLY.

The sea holly is a genus well worthy of attention by all garden lovers, be their gardens large or email. In small gardens it would, of course, not be possible to grow many species, but room could easily be found for one or two plants of .the smaller kinds, and one particularly—E. Oliverianum —for example, is a plant of distinction either for its handsome foliage or the metallic blue of its stems and flower heads. We extract from the Gardeners’ Chronicle the following notes on the genus:— A few of the best are E. Oliverianum, which grows from three to four feet in height, and has flowers of a most attractive shade of aemthyst blue. The Ivory Thistle, E. giganteum, has blue, ovate heads on four feet stems; it was introduced from the Caucasus in 1920. E. amethystinum is a very pretty sea hollv with light blue flowers. It grows about 2ft in height. This species is generally distributed over Europe, and was introduced to cultivation so lone ago as 1643. E. alpinum, a beautiful blue-flowered species, ranges in height from one and a-half foot to two and a-half feet. It is a slender plant, and very attractive when colonised freely in the higher parts of the rock garden. This is also a European species; it was known to cultivation in 1597. B. maritimum is indigenous to these islands, but is not to be despised on that account, for the prey stems and foliage and very pale greyish-blue flowerheads combine to make a most effective subject for use in the wild or semi-wild garden. E. planum has roundish flower-heads of blue on stems about two feet in height. This is another very old garden plant from Eastern Europe; it was introduced in 1596. E. pandanifolium is a veritable giant; being a native of Montevideo, it requires a somewhat sheltcerd position. The flowers ace purplish, on very large panicles, and the stem attains a height of from ten feet to fifteen fee*. It is a noble plant, well worthy of cultivation. Other

species worthy of attention include the pretty E. tripartitum, E. Bourgatii from the Pyrenees, E. dichotornum, and the re-cently-introduced E. prostratum, an interesting and very distinct plant for the rock garden. A selection of these plants will do much to render a border beautiful and interesting from June to September (December to March in Now Zealand), and they possess the additional merit of being “easy.”