OMPHALODES. 



its round blank-looking flat flowers in the most delicate pearly 

 tones of very pale porcelain-blue or sun-kissed snowy rose, seeming 

 there to develop like natural emanations from the blueness of the foliage. 

 In the garden, however, where 0. Luciliae, if well-drained, will come 

 readily from seed, the glaucousness of the seedlings is not to be trusted ; 

 and, without that, lovely as are the blossoms themselves, thrown out 

 all through the summer, they lose half their value if they do not spring 

 from that cool blue tuft beneath, whose colour they so delicately should 

 complete. And, on the other hand, unless you be specially favoured 

 by fortune, you will not want to hack and harry an established tuft of 

 0. Luciliae. So that prescriptions for propagation are apt on many 

 counts to prove unprofitable. In the moraine, too, it grows readily, 

 but slugs will even pursue it across the harsh surface that they hate ; 

 and its safest and most characteristic place will always be in some 

 ancient sunny wall, introduced into a crevice as a young cutting, 

 and there left to grow large if it will, through many successive seasons. 

 In specially hot climates, though, the sun-heat should be counteracted 

 by abundance of water, administered subterraneously if possible (drive 

 a drain -pipe or pot down into the coping of the wall above the plant, 

 and keep it periodically filled), during the growing season, if not 

 indeed from April straight away till the end of August. 



0. nitida (0. lusitanica) is a pretty species, but perhaps the least 

 worthy perennial of its family. In a damp warm corner it makes 

 large clumps like those of some magnified 0. verna, that is content to 

 sit at home in a tuft ; from this, all the late summer through, it sprays 

 about a lavish number of fine stems, about a foot high, waving this 

 way and that, with a profusion of blue stars that, brilliant as they are, 

 suffer a little in effect by being rather meanly proportioned for the 

 size of the plant — not so large or stimulating, for instance, as in 

 0. verna or 0. cappadocica. None the less, it is both useful and hearty 

 and beautiful, and should have care, for it is not always p srfectly hardy 

 in raw climates, luxuriating as it does most especially in quite damp 

 places such as are often therefore heavy and cloying as cold suet in 

 winter. It is native to cool shady hollows throughout North- 

 \V. stem Spain in the lower mountain region. 



0. rwpeetris must be looked for with eager longing in the cliffs 

 between Vladikafkas and Tiflis, on Bolta at about 2500 feet. For it 

 bids fair to be the loveliest of all — a compact and dense little tuffet, 

 all shining with a pure close coat of silver, and not 2 inches high. The 

 - hinlh emerge from the shining mat of leafage, but throw out 

 delicate threadlike foot-stalks in all directions, each carrying a 

 single glorious blue flower as large as in 0. cappadocica, and most 



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