THE MOUNTAIN BOG 231 
fusion, and blooms far on into autumn—an altogether 
indispensable delight. Stlene pusilla is a most exquisite 
thing, a miniature of rupestris, identical in all respects 
but reduced to the most diminutive proportions. I doubt 
if it has quite the robust constitution of its big sister ; in 
any case it should have a very choice corner of the bog— 
if only on account of its minute loveliness. Stlene saai- 
Jfraga is a spidery-growing rock-plant, interesting, but 
not brilliant, with creamy flowers, brownish on the 
outside. 
Most brilliant of the race is Silene Ehizabethae, from 
hot moraine-slopes of Northern Italy, dwarf, sticky- 
leaved, with immense flowers like those of a Clarkia, 
which produce—at least they have produced with me— 
abundance of sound and fertile seed. This plant loves 
the moraine-garden, or a warm, well-drained slope in 
light soil; as for the slugs, they adore it as an article of 
diet. Silene Pumilio is similar, but smaller—a difficult 
thing, I have always found it, craving something which 
I could not supply, though I have tried peat and granite 
and silver sand and everything that seemed at all likely. 
At last, however, some pot-plants in sharp, light loam 
are thriving well. Stlene virginica, from hot Virginia, 
is gorgeous, with huge scarlet flowers, but I have no 
hopes of ever succeeding with so miffy a Southerner ; 
another tall Silene is Zawadskyit, which makes promising- 
looking rosettes of glossy green foliage (like Primula 
clusiana), and then sends up stems of dull, disappointing 
flowers. Remains only Silene Schaftae, a useful dwarf 
border-plant, with abundance of magenta-rose flowers 
through late summer and autumn. Asterias is an annual, 
so is compacta—big, brilliant things, greyish, glaucous- 
leaved with spreading heads of big red flowers; beautiful 
dwarf palaestina, with abundance of soft rosy flowers, is 
painfully half-hardy. As a rule, to tell truth, all pink 
