124 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
useful—F remonti especially notable from its large, rosy- 
purple blossoms. Kabulicus is a woody shrub, and bears 
rather pallid stars. Cassiarabicus proves magnificent, a 
far more bushy, voluminous, and brilliant Amedlus with 
profusion of big, deep-purple blooms. Yownsendi is a 
synonym of Bigelovii, a handsome lilac biennial. Aster 
latifolius and Aster canescens are rare, and more usually 
known as Machaerantha—the one is glabrous and leafy, 
the other silky grey; both bear large gorgeous blossoms 
in varying shades of Imperial violet. Canescens, though 
it has survived the winter, is of rather frail, biennial- 
looking habit, with one main stem that seems as if it will 
only throw lateral growths as a matter of exceptional 
courtesy ; Latifolius is more genuinely perennial, but both 
are American species and like warm light soil, with very 
effectual drainage and as much sun as possible. I have tried 
to believe in their hardiness, but they won’t allow me. 
Another pretty American is Fendleri, which has made 
no great impression on my mind, while yet another 
Yankee, Porteri, is a very great friend of mine, neat, 
light, and feathery in growth, with showers of small 
snowy stars—a robust little plant of exemplary grace and 
beauty. Aster diplostephioeides is an obscure species, so 
far doubtfully in cultivation. I have seedlings of it on 
good authority, which I hope may prove true, but the 
plant which has been sold for it of late years is the true 
Aster sub-coeruleus, a species no less valuable and very 
similar, the main difference lying in the colour of the 
eye-florets, which in swb-coeruleus are golden, and in 
diplostephioeides bluish. Aster sub - coeruleus makes 
masses of handsome foliage in big rosettes, and then, in 
June, sends up a number of naked stems about a foot 
high or more, each carrying one very large bright violet 
flower. It is thus an edition-de-luxe of alpinus, even 
more vigorous and less slug-haunted. As for the better- 
