POTENTILLA. 



peppered singly over the sheet in such profusion as only to give a hint 

 of the silver shimmering here and there beneath, till all the dunes of 

 the Forcella Lungieres in August and September are filmed with pink 

 wherever a grey cloak of Potentilla has been laid over the rippled 

 silt of the ridge. It varies readily, however, and there are pallid forms 

 of less worth by comparison with the refulgent rich roses of the best. 

 Nor is the pure- white form at all uncommon ; but, though a lovely 

 thing, it is no improvement on the blood-heats of the type, and seems 

 to trench a little on the domain of P. Glusiana, which that pearly 

 beauty is perfectly well qualified to occupy for itself without inter- 

 ference. (It differs in having cinq-foil leaves and taller stems, with a 

 loose allowance of blossom.) P. nitida is often desperately hard to 

 collect, owing to the sheer trunked woodiness of its one and only root, 

 more concentrated in the sole tap than are the more liberally- fibred 

 though still tap-rooted masses of P. Glusiana. Nor will P. nitida root 

 quite so readily from the broken cushion. It should, however, be 

 quested from the high level ridges where it makes carpets in the gravel ; 

 for there the mat forms more and more woody trunks to each cluster 

 as it spreads, and these trunks are stimulated by the clammy silt into 

 sending out a few subsidiary threads. Wads, then, should be thus 

 taken, and sent home, and laid in sand. By the spring they will have 

 formed so pleasant a number of hungry new threads that they will be 

 glad to move out of the sand-bed into some sunny crevice of good light 

 loam, where they will at once set to work, growing and spreading to 

 such good effect that by the summer's end they will have formed a 

 curtain over the rock, or filled your crevice with a hearty reminiscence 

 of the Drei Zinnen Ridge. And, if ever these cushions are slack in 

 flower, it will be because the fatness of the soil has sent the plant into 

 so sybaritic a sleep that, like many of the soddenly rich, it has lost 

 care for the continuation of the race. It should then be put into 

 poorer stuff, and have its root tight-squashed between the stones of 

 adversity, which will cause it once more to blossom like the rose it 

 resembles. Catalogues offer various forms, including the white one, 

 and another which they call atrorubens. The two finest of all blushers, 

 however, that have met my eyes, are a pair of tussocks that passion- 

 ately flamed against their cold white wall, at the laden end of a cold and 

 cheerless day of winds as cutting as the words of the wicked. These 

 have not lost their radiance in more kindly conditions, and stand (for 

 I do not love the multiplication of Latin varietal names), as Autumn 

 Sunset and Hose of Dawn — beauties no less hearty in habit than the type, 

 but larger in the flower, and of that especial brilliancy of flaming pure 

 pink which claimed my reluctant labours on that bitter day. 



(1.996) 97 II. — G 



