136 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
give the poor things—just The Plant! As for the 
Michauxias (how can an ordinary person be expected to 
pronounce this ?—‘ Me-show-ia’ is right, but is beyond 
most people; the name usually emerges as My-corks-ia), 
they are tall things, more or less biennial, with panicles 
of reflexed flowers like tiny blue Panther lilies in general 
effect. Campanuloeides has not done much good, but 
Michauxia Tchihatchewi (there’s the worst name in the 
garden) is a handsome-leaved grey person, who thrives 
persistently in a warm, well-drained nook; both are 
easterners, hating mould. 
The Thrifts are rather respectable than beautiful. 
Tall, giant Armeria Cephalotes is very splendid if you get 
him in a good shade of pink, bright and warm. For he 
varies in colour, from seed, and, besides, is more than a 
little of a miff—dying out suddenly under a heavy rain, 
if your climate be chilly and wet, or your soil too heavy. 
However, while he lives he thrives heartily, and so 
escapes the reproach of being a mimp. For a miff is a 
plant which, in the midst of seeming life, is in death, and 
expires abruptly; a mimp is one that for ever hangs on 
the edge of death, trailing a sickly existence towards in- 
evitable extinction. Thus Gentiana verna in too many 
gardens is a mimp; Myosotis rupicola is a milf. Of the 
other Thrifts, the only one to trouble with is Armeria 
caespitosa, a tiny, furry little ball from blazing rock-clefts 
in Provence, thickly covered, in spring, with globes of 
pale rosy flowers. This is lovely, if not brilliant, but 
wants careful watching, perfect drainage, and a warm, dry 
corner where damp may never lodge round its crown. 
Our own Armeria plantaginea is a dull, reduced edition of 
Cephalotes, and any varieties advertised as brighter are 
certain to be only of a more tedious because more pro- 
nounced magenta than the type. 
The Acantholimons, however, are the most delightful of 
