OXYTROPIS. 



folded foliage, glaucous-blue in tone, among which all the summer 

 through, each lonely on a stem of 2 inches or so, appear the ravishing 

 large pearly cups of clear melting white with a faint flush of life at their 

 heart. At times this flush warms into a positive blush, and then, as 

 often happens when a lovely complexion deepens, the result is unbe- 

 coming, and there are many oyes that find O. enneaphylla rosea vory 

 much too flatteringly named, being of a dim magenta pallor, not in 

 itself of special loveliness, but unpardonable as claiming cousinship 

 with a beauty so unparalleled as the pure and candid type. If we 

 need colour let us leave 0. enneaphylla unimproved and go on to 

 0. adenophylla. This is an even more beautiful thing perhaps than 

 the last, certainly much rarer and more expensive. It does not spread 

 about, but forms a solid bulb like the corni of a Cyclamen, from which 

 springs a profusion of leaves almost the same as in the last, but here 

 rising in a close tuft instead of a running colony. Early summer 

 calls up the flower-stems out of this nest, and here each stalk carries 

 several blossoms, but on pedicels so long and so much in line that the 

 fact does not leap to view. And when summer has called them up, 

 it needs the sun to waken the blossoms from sleep ; at the touch of 

 his rays they unfold and reveal the same wide goblets as in the last, 

 but here of a most gentle and exquisite soft lilac-pink with a streaked 

 eye of crimson at the base. 0. adenophylla is a rare glory of Valdivian 

 Andes, and should be planted in light good well-drained soil in full sun 

 and a nice sheltered nook to itself, where it will continue for ever, 

 getting sturdier and wider in the tuft, more and more reckless in the 

 profusion of its fairy flowers. 



Oxygraphis, a small race differing from Ranunculus in that the 

 sepals continue to hang on. We have two species to hope for in 

 0. glacialis and 0. polypetala, both high-alpines of the Himalaj'-a, the 

 first with little blunt fleshy leaves and j^ellow flowers, the second with 

 rounded scalloped leaves, and golden ones, on stems of 2 or 3 inches 

 in a neat tuft. Both may be pictured almost precisely by gilding 

 the lilies of Ranunculus alpester, which they repeat in gold. They 

 will have the same needs. (Hooker, Fl. of British India : some 

 authorities now quote yellow 0. glacialis as Ranunculus glacialis, the 

 snowy-pure !) 



Oxyria. — The Mountain-sorrels have no value. 



Oxytropis. — Like all clans among the Pea-flowers, this race con- 

 tains a great many dingy plants, spoiled for the garden by the family 

 touch of inefficiency and dimness in their colours ; on the other hand, 

 it contains a large number of highly successful efforts in blue and violet, 

 large and brilliant heads of blossom, on short stalks from tufts of ex- 



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