32 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
vulgar, influences my opinion; for I have no such 
prejudice against lovely Rhododendron racemosum. ‘This 
makes a charming wee bush (and grows admirably with 
me) clothed with hard little ovate leaves, greyish beneath ; 
and the abundant flowers are of a rich and lovely soft 
apple-blossom pink. The plant is of recent introduction, 
and shows no signs of becoming commoner, though quite 
easy to grow. Of the small Rhododendrons I think it 
incomparably the best—unless I am to make an excep- 
tion in favour of the newly-shown and figured R. intri- 
catum, which, if the Botanical Magazine tells truth, has 
big flowers that verge on blue! As to this, the Jew 
Ofella can think as he chooses; the colour is by report a 
very rare attractive shade. Otherwise the little Rhodo- 
dendrons run dreadfully to unclean lilacs. Myrtifolium, 
ovatum, parviflorum are all useful plants; so is their 
cousin, the deciduous Rhodora canadensis, an American 
peat-bog plant, of rather untidy habit, with dull flowers 
of bad tone that appear before the leaves. As for Rhodo- 
dendron kamschaticum, this much-vaunted rarity is not, 
I think, worthy of a high place. It is a minute, almost 
arctic shrub, wiry and frail-growing, with very large 
single blooms, which alas! (at least whenever I have seen 
it) were of a sad, unmeritorious magenta. 
Of Chamaecistus I have already spoken, but one Azalea- 
Rhododendron remains to be described, much more in 
sorrow than in anger. ‘This is the marvel that I talked 
of in the Garden of Asia as Azalea ‘ Gloria,’ and before 
its beauty all other Azaleas flee and hide their heads. 
And I say this deliberately ; as you go up to Nikko and 
beyond, to Yumoto, all the wild ita: to eight thousand 
feet and more, are a rolling prairie fire of Azaleas, in 
every shade of splendour, ran the candid amber or 
salmon of mollis, through the whole gamut of yellows, 
white and orange, to scarlet, crimson and violet. And 
