100 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
silence. But no; this will not do. I must be honest, 
and confess before the world that Polygala Chamaebuxus 
does not seem to requite my affection. I swear I love her 
wholeheartedly, the little creeping Box that one finds on 
the lower Alp, with butterfly-shaped flowers of cream and 
yellow and white and orange (so curiously recalling the 
colours of a poached egg, a la Portugaise). Jhodoptera is 
a crimson-winged form, and Vayredae a delightful near 
relation; but the whole family has no love for me. 
And this is the more humiliating because these Milkworts 
are usually the easiest of plants to grow, thriving where 
they are happy, like so much Couch-grass. But, if the 
truth must out, it takes a great deal of trouble in this 
garden to make any of the peat-zone Alpines really com- 
fortable ; so that, after much sorrow and expense, I have 
almost accepted my refusal at the hands of Polygala 
Chamaebuxus, and betaken myself to other kindlier 
loves. 
Of the Flaxes, any one and every one grows the noble 
big yellow ones, Linum flavum and Linum arborewm, 
neither of which is perfectly, safely hardy, though, even 
here, they are seldom if ever really injured by the winter. 
But the rock-garden possesses two most delightful dwarf 
Flaxes in Linum alpinum and Linum salsoloeides. Linum 
alpinum is like a dwarf almost trailing version of the 
ordinary Flax, with lovely soft blue flowers. It thrives 
in any open position, and the wonder is that people do 
not make more use of it. The other rock-garden species 
is even less common; Linum salsoloeides haunts the 
Maritime Alps—I have collected him above St. Martin 
Vesubie on hot sunny banks below the Alpine region. 
He is almost prostrate—in a very rare form, of which I 
only have one plant, he is quite so—making a few 
wiry branches, furry with narrow green leaves, like a 
miniature pine-twig. The flowers are large, ice-cold 
