OF ODD TREASURES 137 
plants in every way—neat and thrifty and brilliant— 
cousins of the pallid Thrifts though they be. Probably 
the old elwmaceum remains the best—making mats of 
spiny cushions in any decent, hot place, and then sending 
up spikes of bright rosy blossoms, like very large thrift- 
flowers, each arranged singly, in a chaffy bract. My 
other species, venustum and androsaceum, are much rarer 
in gardens, and even more beautiful, though slower in 
growth, and, perhaps, a little choicer in requirements. 
The leaves of venustum are glaucous grey, and the flowers 
are much bigger than those of glwmacewm, and of a lovely 
bright pink; the flowers of androsaceum have more 
purple. All the Acantholimons hail from hot ranges like 
Lebanon, and in cultivation like a sunny-corner, light 
soil, and a high, well-drained position; in which cir- 
cumstances they show themselves pleasantly hardy and 
accommodating. 
Two other sun-lovers with whom, on the contrary, I 
have had a good deal of bother, are those two glorified 
Portulacas, Lewista rediviva and Lewisia Tweedy. ‘These 
are both Americans, and want sun and drought and 
drainage, so that I might have expected difficulty with 
them. However, rediviva has done very fairly well, 
with its odd habit—a reminiscence of the deadly desert- 
summer, I suppose—of dying off most wretchedly into a 
withered mass, and then (just when you are on the point 
of throwing away the corpse in disgust) of breaking quite 
happily again, with a quantity of rosy Mesembryan- 
themum-like flowers. Lewista Twweedyi is very much more 
beautiful, however, with leafy rosettes, that look like 
some succulent evening Primrose, and then, on stems 
about four or five inches high, large flowers of an iri- 
descent creamy-pink, such as you see in certain ‘T'ea 
Roses. In the open this plant has been an utter failure 
here—any touch of undue damp seeming to rot its stout 
