PENTSTEMON. 



the top of erect smooth stems <>l some is inohes or so, set. with narrow 

 toothed foliage. For oulture in dampish plat 



Pentstemon. - Catalogues contain long strings of names of these, 

 often wrong, and almost always without adequate descriptions; bo 

 that there is no knowing where one is, a dangerous defioienoy in all 

 plant-races, but especially in such a case as this, where, among many 

 speoies of the greatest charm, there arc al o an enormous number of 

 dim or gawky weeds, to say nothing of those that hail from countries 

 and States and conditions boo tropical to offer hope that their inhabi- 

 tants will here stay happy. And, among the lovely species, too, the 

 names are mixed and cloudy. So that now we must fare across the 

 Atlantic for profounder study of this family, which seems to have one 

 old-World outlier, and one only, in the Russian P.frutescens. When 

 suited with their various treatments (and all Pentstcmons in England 

 clamour for light and very perfectly-drained soil, as well as for the most 

 lavish allowance of sun), the different species can all be raised from 

 seed and propagated from late summer cuttings. Lato summer, too, 

 and autumn, seethe climacteric of their blossom, which is brilliant in 

 proportion as the life of the individual plant is inclined to be brief, 

 Pentstcmons usually having but a lush constitution, preferring a 

 crowded hour of glory rather than a longer existence of mere usefulness. 



P. acuminatus, from sandy rocky places in Missouri, Texas, &c, 

 stands about a foot high, with small narrow-ovate glaucous leaves, 

 fat and thick and firm, with a graceful spire of long narrow funnels 

 of lilac-lavender, or blue, or purple, or all three, that open suddenly 

 into a wide mouth. 



P. albidus is a dullness of no merit. 



P. alpinus has at times been reduced to a variety of P. glaber, and 

 also had specific rank of its own as P. riparius, P. oreophilus, 

 P. Bakeri. It is one of the most beautiful in the whole race, but 

 impermanent, as is often the case with beautiful things (ye1 this one 

 qo1 only leaves a memory behind, but also seed). P. alpinus may 

 be 5 inches high, or five times as much, hut the stems are weakly 

 and unable to bear their burden of big sprayed flowers in the most 

 heavenly shade of violent clear-blue with a white throat. Its amplo 

 leaves are also glaucous-blue, but deficient at the base, oblong-spoon 

 shaped and narrower as they mount the stem; the stock is 

 woody, and the pi to 1 he high mountain gravels of the 



Cent] In the garden, to be truly permanent, it wan 



mi-' treatment in a soil nutritious, indeed, bu1 quite lull of stones 

 • d li' ntn< and drainaj 



/'. a/mbiguu8 ii a diffuse speci of the central prairies, making a 



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