PHYS0CHLA1NA OR1ENTALIS. 



is also a form of this where the leaves are not only silver, but flurry 

 with silver. And there are also Ph. vituUfem and Ph. Jloribunda, quite 

 tufted and perennial, and Ph. Xcwbcrryi, large and silver, but with 

 white flowers. All these from the dry places of Colorado, and to be 

 considered accordingly. 



Physochlaina orientalis is a weird Solanaceous species out 

 of the East, with a big fleshy root, and uncurling, branching sprays, 

 some 8 inches high, of coppery -blue flowers most strange and odd, in 

 April and May, before the hairy, dark-green foliage has developed to 

 anything like its subsequent amplitude. This should have a sheltered 

 nook in profound and well-drained woodland soil or garden loam 

 not too much visited by the sun, and may be multiplied by seed or 

 division. There is also Ph. grandifiora from Tibet, which is more 

 stiffly hairy, and has much larger flowers of greenish yellow in loose 

 spikes. 



Physoptychis gnaphalioeides is almost Vesicaria— a small 

 tufted Crucifer from high in the Persian Alps, half shrubby in its small 

 way, with spikes of golden crosses, and rosettes of numerous leaves 

 all hoary grey with stellar hairs. The whole thing is only about 

 3 inches high, so should have a choice foreground place in full sun in 

 light limy soil or moraine or warm crevice. Seed, or cuttings. 



Phyteuma. — What this race has done to be called especially 

 The Plant or the Vegetable Growth, beyond all other plants and vege- 

 table growths, is not to be known by man. The rock-garden need 

 make no long tarrying over consideration of the taller spike-headed 

 Rampions ; but in the wild meadow among the Anemones and the 

 Paradis- as, the sombre pokers of Ph. Hatteri, Ph. spicatum, Ph. Michelii 

 (with its paler blue form Ph. betonicaefolium) may well have their 

 place, gloomily flowering in full summer, and standing boldly up on 

 bare stems of 18 inches or so. But there are very much more precious 

 and immediately important things in the race, and the Alps are 

 carpeted in many small, neat Rampions, which every one who sees 

 them is always trying to tell apart, and never succeeding. Here then, 

 we will make an effort at each portrait. 



Ph. austriacum, Ph. Carestiae, Ph. globulariaefolium will give no 

 trouble: I 11 rare small species of which Ph. Carestiae comes 



from Corsica, and Ph. globular iaefolhn a, the smallest of all, with stems 

 of 2 inch' from the Eastern ranges, while Ph. serratum is 



another small Corsiean, \ . gfcemless and flat on the ground, 



with broad, pointed, toothed leaves, almost nursing a dishful of little 

 blue bottles in an ample plate of bracts. 



Ph. eomomm, however, f r harder to collect, is far better worth 



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