RANUNCULACEAE 51 
always thrilling, even if they are not beautiful—and all 
they want is rich soil and to be left alone. Nothing 
beats the snowy niger—such a preposterous paradox of a 
name! But the bluish torguatus is attractive, indeed, 
and so are the purple olympicus, the rose-red orientalis, 
with its many varieties, the bright purple colchicus, the 
native foctidus, like a fountain of pale-green foam, and, 
I imagine—for I have never succeeded in getting it— 
that marvellous plant, the true dividus, from Corsica, 
which sounds like an enormous foetidus—a column of 
spouting green spray. Luteus I have never had, and my 
collection is not at all complete, worse luck ; but those I 
do have give me a great wish to make it so, if ever I got 
time to specialise on more than twenty specialities at once! 
The Adonises are very much praised as a rule. There 
are three or four yellow Alpine species — wolgensis, 
pyrenaca, vernalis, amurensis. ‘These are so alike to the 
casual eye as to need little differentiation. They all 
have very finely divided leaves, like green clouds, and 
large yellow flowers. But the yellow is always spoiled, 
for me, by a certain acridity of tone. It is just tainted 
with green, and has a bitter, thin, unpleasant shade. 
I have never been able to like any Adonis, I am sorry to 
say, except amurensis as one saw it used in the Japanese 
toy-gardens. These toy-gardens are a landscape in a 
pan a foot across—some range of hills, or river-bed, or 
promontory by the sea. ‘Tiny, tiny plum-trees stand on 
the margin, aglow with blossom, beside some ancient 
water-worn boulder, and there are generally two or 
three wee golden buds of Adonis amurensis coming out 
‘of the ground like a dumpy little Aconite—just small 
globes of gold, nothing more. In this stage it is a 
treasure, but it loses all attraction for me as it grows large 
and coarse, even as a slum-cat is delightful in the kitten- 
stage, but erelong develops the full unattractiveness 
