PHILESIA BUX1F0LIA. 



ending each in a tight cone of small purple peas. Such is P. violaceus ; 

 but P. cmididus has white heads, and P. tenuifolius, pink. 



Petasites. — The great Coltsfoots are only fitted for the re- 

 motest parts of the wildest bog or wilderness, where P. japonica is 

 nearly as ample and tropical as a Gunnera in effect. 



Petrocallis pyrenaica is the Rock Beauty of the highest stone 

 shingles and ridges, where it sits tight in neat rounded cushions often 

 a foot across, and still more often hidden from view beneath a mass 

 of delicate lilac-pale crosses, filling the nose with the sweetness of 

 vanilla, as the neat, profuse beauty, so gentle and persuasive, fills the 

 eye with satisfaction . Petrocallis is a locally abundant delight, especially 

 but not exclusively on the calcareous mountains, here and there along 

 the mam chains from the Pyrenees to the Carpathians : on the gaunt 

 ridges immediately above the Mont Cenis it may be seen especially 

 prodigal and ample, and on the limestones of lower Austria, less 

 wadded and wide in the mass. Under cultivation the Rock Beauty 

 makes its proper tight cushions of finely cloven, wedge-shaped, minute 

 green leaves, serried into the densest congregation of shoots ; but, like 

 many high alpines, is by no means so apt as at home to conceal them 

 beneath a carpet of flower. It can best be induced to do this by 

 growing it in full sun, and in a poor part of the moraine. Its seeds 

 can, of course, be raised, but the plant is best multiplied by pulling 

 away a lateral column or two from the clump, and striking them as 

 cuttings in sand about the end of the summer, say in the beginning 

 of September. 



P. fenestrata is quite near the last, with patches of smooth bluish- 

 green leaves cut into three sharp teeth and very tiny. The stems, 

 however, are rather longer, some 2 or 3 inches high, and the flowers 

 are white, in longer sprays, and with the fruticulose little branches of 

 the mass not downy but bald. It asks for the same treatment, to 

 remind re of its home in the stony places above the Val Loura on 

 Elburs ; flowering, like P. pyrenaica, in early summer, and like the 

 last to be propagated by cuttings. 



Fetrocoptis. See under Lychnis. 



Phaca. — Xone of these Alpine Astragalids have any value for 

 the garden, being dim in colour and undistinguished in habit. 



Phacelia sericea and idahoensis may be tried in speoially 

 warm and sandy places. They are dwarf or foot -high plants, hairy, 

 with leaves cut into narrow jags, and then a naked crowded spire of 

 smallish blue or lilac cups in May and June. Seed. They are peren- 

 nial, if not rotted off by rain in winter. 



Philesia buxifolia or magellanica is a noble Liliaceous 



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