P1NGUICULA. 



ranges, and might give trouble to the unwary. But it is an altogether 

 larger growth than any of the alpine species already recounted, and 

 with whom it shares the high fine turf (though perhaps not as a rule 

 ascending to such elevations). In the first place, it is not of matting 

 habit, but forms a single tuft of two or three stems ; in the second place, 

 the scanty tuft is of thick and stocky build, with only a very few 

 stalked leaves at the base, and those broadish-oval, pointed, coarsely 

 toothed, and clothed, like the whole plant, in a hoar of velvety grey 

 hair. The two or three thick stalks, set with a largish leaf or two like 

 those at the base (but not stalked), are some 3 or 4 inches high, 

 ending in a saucer of ample coarse-toothed leaves, yet not ample 

 enough not to be successfully overflowed by a quite conspicuous fine 

 large head of large blue flowers distinctly bigger than in any of the 

 foregoing, and of notable effect, on a clump so neat and small in habit, 

 and so chary of its stems. Indeed the whole tuft looks like that of 

 some hoar-frosted lowland Phyteuma, being philosophic in a high 

 mountain station to which it has unadvisedly strayed. 



Pimelea. — None of these New Zealand Daphnes are officially 

 reckoned hardy, but considering the many surprises that occur, there 

 would be far less about this than about many others, if two or three 

 at least of the species were to prove possible in light peat and a 

 sheltered warm corner. P. arenaria might be tried, with its leathery 

 leaves so beautifully silky below, and its heads of white blossom ; and 

 P. Lyallii ; and the most beautiful of all, P. Traversii, which gives us 

 hope by ascending to alpine elevations and in the South Island — a 

 dense branched erect shrub of a foot or two, with the leaves arranged 

 in overlapping fours and often red-edged, and every shoot ending in 

 a bunch of large Daphne-flowers of white or pink. 



Pinguicula. — The Butterworts ask absolutely for abundant 

 moisture in their soil, but when this is arranged for, give no further 

 trouble whatever : and in winter their carnivorous fat leafage dies all 

 away, and a fat nodule of greeny scales alone remains, just underground, 

 to promise a renewal next year. All answer to the same treatment 

 in rich cool ground, kept rippling with dampness above and below. 

 Our own P. vulgaris, with its violet little Gloxinias, has quaint charm, 

 but its Irish cousin, P. grandiflora, has twice or three times the bulk 

 of flower and charm, with a flapping lip of purple and white, like that 

 of some tropical Zygopetalum. Another larger-blossomed species in 

 the way of our own is P. macroceras from Unalaska ; while P. spatu- 

 lata, from Transbaikalia, wears a big spoon-shaped lip. Very large 

 in the flower, too, is P. vallisneriaefolia, with erect wormy-looking filmy 

 leaves of pale pellucid green ; and great lilac Streptocarpus-flowers 



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