BETWEEN DIANTHUS AND EPILOBIUM 95 
not tell. It has varying descriptions, one of which is 
suspiciously like that of glacialis. My plant, however, 
is a thrifty, tight-growing Alpine, with white, fringed 
flowers, of easy culture and pleasant habit. 
Of vaginatus, the true fiery Holtzeri, of Requieni, 
Seguiert and many others, I only have seedlings at 
present, so that my utterances would only be those of 
hope, not those of experience, and what they might thus 
gain in radiance they would lose in authority. I have 
also had, my catalogue tells me, a hybrid of alpinus and 
callizonus. I cannot even remember it; evidently the 
plant shared the constitution of its father. Dranthus 
roseus, that was once sent me, is quite falsely named, but 
is a pretty, small plant, with glaucous tufts and white 
flowers: and Spencer Bickham is a bright caesius hybrid. 
Among my other obscure or doubtful pinks stands a 
very interesting one that I collected at St. Martin 
Vesubie, and which, in my own mind, for lack of 
authoritative name, I think of as serotinus. For the 
merit of this plant is that it sends up its long wiry strag- 
gling boughs in October, and opens its great fringy 
flowers in November. These are of a brilliant carmine- 
magenta, and glow like sparks amid the deadness of the 
garden. For the plant, easy and robust under cultiva- 
tion, faithfully retains its late-blooming habit, despite 
all temptations of changed season and climate. Very 
lovely too is another vigorous novelty, no less easy and 
even more striking. This is a hybrid of caesius and 
superbus, which makes a tiny bush, clothed all the 
summer through with innumerable jagged flowers of a 
rich warm rose. ‘This has the merits of its parents, and 
is invaluable,—the best, after alpinus and neglectus. 
Lychnis has but one exception to the rule of ugliness 
that taints its colours. In almost all Lychnises (and 
pink Silenes too) there is a tang of magenta which very 
