A COLLECTING DAY ABOVE AROLLA 91 
yellow. Do not overfeed 4. vitaliana with too rich soil, 
and you will never have any complaint to make of him. 
There are some other noteworthy species, too, in the 
carnea group. Brigantiaca makes larger rosettes, but is 
otherwise very similar, with bigger heads of rather pallid 
pink flowers; hedraeantha is much more brilliant, yet 
broader-leaved, with flowers of a fine rose. This is a 
novelty, hailing from the Balkans, and both species are 
quite decently easy in any fair cultivation. I have hedrae- 
antha in the moraine, where it throve splendidly for a 
time, and will probably do so again as soon as it has 
recovered from the oppressive attentions of a mouse. 
All these rosy Androsaces, of course, would be even 
more beautiful than they are—this is horrid ingratitude, 
but also truth—if they did not have that faint, faint 
lilac-magenta tone which so frequently interferes with 
the purity of colour in the Primulas and their near 
relations—of whom, of course, Androsaces are about the 
nearest. Laggeri is, by many lengths, the best of its 
kin, a tiny version of carnea, so minute in growth that its 
spreading tufts might be taken for those of some small 
Hypnum. WHowever, it soon enlightens you as to its 
charms by sending up a dozen little stems or more, each 
crowned with a head of golden-eyed rosy flowers, the 
most brilliant of all their kind—if you except the im- 
possible glacialis. A. Laggeri loves a warm, loose bank 
of gritty peat—at least, it does here in a moist climate, 
and is a lovely treasure beyond price—especially as, being 
a wiry-haired species, it needs no apparatus to ward off 
winter-rain. 
Androsace lactea is a link between the others, and the 
annual and biennial species. It is, as a matter of fact, 
very pretty; and yet, so very misrepresentative of the 
name it bears that I can never love it quite as much as 
it deserves. It has big rosettes of smoothish dark green 
