236 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
much depth and fire, so bright an orange at the flower’s 
eye, that the little clustered cyclamens at the crown of 
that frail stem have a strong charm—especially if you 
collect this Dodecatheon in its native haunts. I came 
upon it high in the Canadian Rockies, near the last limit 
of herbage. All around the stones were triumphing over 
the vegetation ; above, in a vast amphitheatre, were walls, 
screes, escarpments of naked rock, falling, in terrific arid 
precipices, or long slopes of débris, towards a green icy 
lake a thousand feet lower down. And here, nodding 
amid the rare, sickly grasses, waved the ardent, few- 
flowered clusters of the Dodecatheon, and, as I gathered 
up its roots, a striped squirrel—who must have been one 
of the Twelve Gods in avatar—came and sat on a stone 
and chittered angrily at me for removing his treasures. 
But alas! in cultivation, I have never succeeded in doing 
anything with WDodecatheon integrifolium, though one 
would have thought my soil and climate sufficiently 
Alpine, sufficiently reminiscent of its own. 
Yet another large cousin of the Primulas there is, 
which is good for a sheltered rich corner, not too select, 
on the outskirts of the bog. This is Cortusa Matthioli, 
whose variety grandiflora is better than the type and 
better than the other species of Cortusa. 'These Cortusas 
throw up each year large, bristly, soft green leaves, like 
shaggy versions of the Wood-sanicle, or Primula sinensis, 
and then, on a tall stem of about a foot, clusters of 
pendent Primula stars, which are of a dark and brownish 
red. ‘They are interesting rather than brilliant, but are 
well worthy of a place if you have room. 
