POTENTILLA. 



P. pyrenaica is an intimate relation of P. aurea and P. delphinensis. 

 From P. aurea and P. alpestris it differs in that the stems are thrown 

 out from the lateral axils of the stock, instead of from the centre of 

 the crown ; and the rosette-leaves are living at the time, instead of 

 being dead as they often are in the others when the flower-stalks 

 emerge. The whole growth is weaker than P. delphinensis, floppier and 

 smaller ; the stems only rise up after creeping, instead of standing 

 straight from their birth ; the lower leaves are five-lobed, but the lobes 

 are narrower and often do not run to the base, oval-pointed in outline, 

 and scalloped along their edges ; instead of being very ample, obovate, 

 and deeply toothed all round. P. pyrenaica, finally, is truer to its 

 name than many rivals that bear it, and is found only in the Pyrenees. 

 The flowers are large and golden as in all this group, one or two to the 

 stems, that may be 4 inches long or 18. 



P. recta. — No. It is a coarse thing, yellowish-flowered and poor. 



P. reptans, a lovely but devastating English weed, with a double 

 form as rampageous as the type. 



P. Reuteri is a Spanish high-alpine, of very much the same beauty 

 and charms as P. nevadensis, to which it is extremely closely allied. 



P. rubricaulis is a red-stemmed, white-flowered species of 2 or 3 

 inches from the high Alps of North America, where it also takes a 

 yet smaller impoverished form in P. r. depauperata. The leaves are 

 feathered, not fingered, in a tuft, and white-felted underneath, while 

 the blossoms are produced on few-flowered sprays in opposite pairs. 



P. rupestris makes a complete change for our eyes. For this, from 

 its hard crown makes a spraying mass of long leaves, each made up of 

 toothed oval leaflets in pairs at rare intervals, and a longer, larger, oval- 

 pointed lobe at the end ; these sprout gracefully from the stock, and in 

 the middle rises a tall and gracefully- branching erect stem of 12 inches, 

 more or less, breaking in summer into a loose fountain of fine white 

 flowers. It may be seen here and there in the Alps, but never at 

 alpine elevations, and almost always on warm limestone rocks or in their 

 crevices. And there are one or two most secret spots in Great Britain 

 where its delicate sprays may be seen waving. In the garden it is as 

 hearty as the worst weed among its kindred, and beautiful no less in 

 the grace of its port and the clear whiteness of its large blooms in late 

 summer, than in the reddish-bronzed tone often assumed by the 

 stems and foot-stalks. In Corsica, moreover, P. rupestris has taken a 

 strange and precious development. For it is here in the high Alps, 

 either of lime or granite, that it varies into the minutely- dwarf form 

 which is sent out by catalogues as P. pygmaea, being in reality P. 

 rupestris var. pygmaea, a neat and most exquisite thing of an inch 



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