POTEXTILLA. 



ria is a little white-flowered thing that makes no claim. 



P. calabra is a variety of P. argentea, with decumbent stems and 

 the leaflets can- y above, but hoary below, divided, fan-shape, 



into narrow strips. It fellows, a dullness of little value. 



P. canadensis. — Say no. 



P. camiolica. — A 3-inch grower of the Eastern Alps, with flowers 

 declared to be of pinkish-white in April. To be seen before purchase. 



P. ca ta not an uninteresting or unworthy species, although 



not among the most showy. In the limestone rocks of all the Eastern 

 ranges it forms wide mats of five-fingered, stalked leaves, grey and 

 and silverish, and from the thick crown summer elicits a great 

 number of stems some 5 or 6 inches high, that contrive on the ashy 

 plant to make a pretty effect, spraying this way and that, though the 

 petals of the many white flowers are narrow and starry, showing the 

 sepals in between, and thus giving a greenish tone to the inflorescence, 

 which deprives it of any brilliancy it might' have had. It is of the 

 easiest culture anywhere on lime (or anywhere else, probably). 



P. chrysantha is yellow, and 2 feet high. 



P. chrysocraspeda stands quite close to P. aurea, but the leaves are 

 always in three leaflets and clad in silk, which distinguishes it from 

 its larger relations P. aurea, P. alpestris, and P. gelida. The stems are 

 and fine and hairy and depressed, with big bright-yellow flowers, 

 and golden silk to the edge of the leaves and on their ribs beneath. 

 (From the Alps of the Levant. Macedonia, &c.) 



P. cinerea should not be trusted. It is minute in flower as in 

 growth. 



P. Clunana takes high rank among the noblest of beautiful alpine 



plants, forming a pendant to the glorious P. nitida. It is in the far 



rn limestone cliffs that this rare species at last appears, hanging 



from the rock like P. nitida in huge wide mats of foliage that are only 



just a trifle less silver}'. The flower-clusters, however, are leafier 



and longer, and carry more flowers above a looser-looking mass, and 



the leaves themselves are fire-fingered instead of three-fingered as in 



P. nitida. The blossoms themselves are large and full in the segment 



as Nitida's. and of a pure milk-white ; shining from afar in their clusters 



over the clump, rather than sheeting it in a dense constellation as in 



P. nitida. As it has much the same habit, however, so it has the same 



temper : the chosen mat upon the mountains should be broken from 



its woody great root at the neck, and laid in sand ; by the next spring 



it wfll have made new fibres, and maj* be planted out in any good 



e in any sunny situation in any good open soil, though lime is 



iallv indicated for almost all the saxatile Potentillas. 



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