CRUCIFERAE 63 
white-flowered native annual 4. maritimum, now called 
Koeniga. 'Then there are montanum and alpestre, plants 
of the Southern Alps, prostrate and more or less grey- 
leaved, with heads of blossom that have a certain acrid, 
mean tone in their yellows. They have double varieties 
which are fairly pretty. Alysswm gemonense is a seed- 
ling here, and proves the best of all in colour—a really 
pure, gentle yellow; Shivereckia podolica, otherwise known 
as Alyssum podolicum, is rather an uninteresting, white- 
flowered plant, and both species seem very fertile and 
robust. Alysswm savatile is a well-known plant, and 
really invaluable with its dense masses of grey foliage, 
quite hidden by the astonishing abundance of its yellow 
flowers. The variety citrinuwm is paler in colour and 
even more attractive. The double form and the varie- 
gated form move no emotion in me. My own favourite 
in the family is the rather rare and delicate little Alysswm 
tdaeum, the only one of its race I know that can be used, 
or deserves to be used, in any choice place on the rock- 
work. Jdaewm is a small, prostrate species, with tiny 
roundish leaves in pairs down its stem. And it is the 
leaves that make the plant so charming, for they are 
absolutely silver—not white exactly, not glaucous, but 
true silver. All the Alyssums, I believe, without excep- 
tion, are southerners, and all want dry light spots in full 
sun. heir only constitutional dislike is for excessive 
moisture. And this may be made a rule for all the Cross- 
bearers that one is ever likely to let into the garden. 
The Drabas have some reputation, and are generally 
advertised in rosy terms. I must be honest and own 
that I don’t really like any of them. ‘They are all neat- 
habited, true rock-plants, and no doubt very useful, but 
I can never feel any enthusiasm for them. ‘Their flowers 
are mean and ragged in shape, a dullish white, or sharp, 
bitter yellow. I grow aeizoetdes, scabra, and olympica 
