BETWEEN DIANTHUS AND EPILOBIUM 109 
unfortunately it is a little delicate, and very much objects 
to damp. Also it is exceedingly difficult to procure ; its 
range is limited ; roots are not easy to come by ; and as 
for seed, the cattle browse so effectively over the high 
Alpine pastures where it grows, that very rarely after 
flowering-time can you find a sign of the plant itself, to 
say nothing of its seed-pods. No wonder it remains a 
rare plant of rigidly limited distribution, Perhaps the 
best of all, though, for the rock-work, is the new lovely 
hybrid, Cytisus kewensis, forming broad almost prostrate 
masses of long thin sprays, with pendulous cream-coloured 
flowers, large and beautiful. This is perfectly easy, hardy, 
and persistent, to be increased by cuttings ; a picture of 
loveliness in its time. Procumbens and biflorus (biflorus, I 
_ fancy, is one parent of kewensis ; and Ardoini may be the 
other) are rarities of kindred habit, bearing much the 
same cream-coloured blossoms, and having much the same 
creeping habit, though less vigorous, perhaps. Decuwmbens 
has golden flowers, and its synonym is Genista prostrata. 
Schipkaensis isa charming dwarf shrub with white flowers. 
Of the greater Brooms, there is the dull lilac-pink New- 
Zealander, Notospartium Carmichaeliae, for a warm corner, 
and then Cytisus praecow,the white-flowered, and Spartiwm 
junceum are invaluable for bold work. And all these— 
Cytisus, Genista, Spartium—are of the easiest culture, 
though Cytisus Ardoini and his rocky kindred deserve, of 
course, more attention than the big rampers. A weird 
and curious beauty, though, of whom the same cannot be 
said, is Erinacea pungens; truly may this be called a 
hedgehog! It makes a microscopic bush, like a Broom 
dwarfed by a Japanese. ‘Then, on the long, inexorable 
bare spines that make its boughs, there break a few 
apologetic-looking little leaves, and after these the large, 
deep-blue flowers. Erinacea is a Spaniard, and requires 
heat and drought, and rough well-drained soil, if it is to 
