POTENTILLA. 



cultivation P. nitida blooms perpetually from June to August if well 

 suited, though not always in the same high pressure of blossom that 

 it shows here in early summer (whereas on the Alps it is never at its 

 b ; until August is in, and even over). 



P. nivalis is rather a liar, not having quite such an addiction to 

 sn< m as it s name would import . It is at high levels, but not the highest . 

 that the plant will be found in the rocky places of the French ranges. 

 It is a woody, woolly and herbaceous specie- in the way of P. wdderia, 

 with tufts of long-stemmed leaves from the base, made up of five or 



d lobes very broadly oval, toothed at the tips, and green and vel- 

 vety on both faces. The shaggy stems are set with narrower trefoils, 

 and are some 4 to 12 inches high, carrying (in summer, like all this 

 section : the Yerna -group belongs to June) a head of rather baggy and 

 bell-shaped flowers of creamy-white, with the sepals longer than the 

 petals, and projecting from between each of them in pointed green rays. 



P. nivea, however, is a far worse species, and a far worse liar, 

 having neither any resemblance to snow, nor any inclination to live 

 near it. It is a common-looking little underbred plant, with trefoiled 

 leaves, often not lobed to the base, greyish-green above, and greyish- 

 white below. The stems, almost bare, are some 5 or 6 inches high, 

 carrying a few little yellow stars of no size or brilliance. It has 

 nothing to do with the group of the last, but is an inferior and wide- 

 spread infester of all the great Northern ranges, in the kinship of 

 P. grandi flora, but quantum mutata ab Hid. 



P. nudicaulis comes from the high Alps of Cappadocia, where it 

 makes a dense stock and sends out numbers of fine naked stems, with 

 showers of beautiful blossoms as large as in P. aurea, but of pure white. 



P. pedemontana is an early-summer bloomer, with golden-yellow 

 flowers and stems of about a foot. It makes no especial claim. 



P. peduncularis should have the treatment of a pestilence. 



P. pennsylvanica should share it. 



P. petiolulala belongs to the limestone crevices of the Eastern Alps, 

 and stands quite close to P. caulescens, from which, however, it differs 

 in being clad in hairy stickiness, instead of downy silk ; the lobes of 

 the cinq-foil leaves are broader, and the three middle ones are hardly 

 notched at the tip, or only slightly. 



P. pulvinaris is a beautiful little close high-alpine tuffet, from the 



Cilician Taurus, forming dense rosetted masses of silkj'-downy small 



cinq-foils, toothed in the lobes ; and emitting from these a number of 



d-fine stems, each bearing perhaps a couple of large bright-golden 



llo\\> 



P. pygmaea. See under P. rupestris. 



