THE MOUNTAIN BOG 235 
its wee brother, scotica—not to mention its other relatives, 
magellanica, hakusanensis, algida; sikkimensis, tall and 
royal, powdery-white, with swaying peals of sulphur- 
yellow bells; and glutinosa with queer crowded little 
bunches of blue-violet flowers, which it can only be in- 
duced to put forth when grown in the mossiest, spongiest 
bog. Finally there are the giants of the denticulata and 
cashmeriana kinds — fat cabbages for outlying shady 
banks, and the new pulverulenta form of japonica, with 
its offspring, the flaming hybrid Unique, whose other 
parent is cockburniana, and his constitution poor. 
Then there are the North American cousins of Primula 
—the Shooting Stars, which love rich, well-drained, damp 
soil. Who the ‘I'welve Gods may be, and what claim 
they may have to Dodecatheon I cannot tell, but these 
flowers of the Twelve Gods are gracious if not dazzling 
creatures, large leaved, with tall stems that carry a head 
of little purplish, gold-pointed flowers like small Cycla- 
mens. Their colour is not very interesting, and their 
growth a trifle gawky ; Meadia is the largest, and has 
better-coloured varieties; pauciflorum is quite the best 
kind, a free seeder, smaller than Meadia and excellent for 
the bog, a most attractive fair frail beauty. 
But the rarest species of all—and indeed the only 
Alpine species that the twelve undiscerning gods 
possess, is Dodecatheon integrifolium. 'This, however, is 
a rare, difficult little plant, an Alpine of Alpines, requir- 
ing a very choice open space in the bog, with abundance 
of stone chips and fine peaty humus. It only grows 
three or four inches high, with three or four flowers in a 
loose cluster at the top of the stem. The blossoms, 
hardly smaller than those of great stout jeffreyanum and 
Meadia, look very large for the minute daintiness of the 
plant; and their colour, though running, like so many 
tones in this race, towards a magenta-purple, yet have so 
