POTEXTILLA. 



or two in height, with the grace of foliage and habit of its parent, 

 unaltered except in actual size, and with the beauty of the blossom 

 unimpaired, so that it is fit for choicer places than the grandeur of 

 P. rupesbris will suit, and flowers also through late summer into 

 autumn. 



P. Sakssowii is a woody bush, with fine large foliage, glossy and 

 finely leafleted. But the flowers are not always common, and when 

 they come are not particularly desirable ; being very big indeed, 

 but with the white petals so narrow that all the sepals are shown and 

 predominate, and make the whole wide ;-tar of dulli h-green effect. 

 (Starve it : it hails from river-shingles of North Tibet.) 



P. salisburgen-is — P . alpe-stris, q.v. 



P. sanguisorbaefolia is an 8-inch species with yellow flowers and 

 no especial value, from South Europe. 



P. 8axifiraga is a rare and beautiful little treasure very seldom seen in 

 cultivation, but very abundant in its district, where, from all the 

 limestone cliffs of the Roja Valley or the Vesubie, it hangs from the 

 rock in masses like clumps of dead bats or abandoned swallows' nests. 

 It forms, as may be pictured, hard tight cushions of small cinq-foil 

 leaves, leather}- and dark and shining above, silver-white beneath ; 

 and from this cushion spray out thread-fine stems of an inch or two, in 

 endless number, each carrying a few delicate white stars of blossom, 

 not very large, but specially dainty and pretty in their multitudinous 

 effect when they all break into bloom in early summer. It should 

 have the treatment, though it cannot claim quite the glory, of P. 

 nitida and P. Clusiana. 



P. saximontana comes from the Alps of Colorado, where this also 

 forms tight tufts, but the su all leaves are feathered and not fingered, 

 though they have the same silky reverse ; the stems are hardly 2 inches 

 long, bearing two or three fine flowers of ample petals. 



P. Seidlitziayia is beautiful, a plant closely akin to P. chrysocraspeda, 



from the Alps of Russian Armenia, which, from its close-trefoiled tuft, 



emits stems of 2 or 3 inches, bearing blossoms as large and full and 



golden as in P. aurea. but with the outer segments of the calyx cut into 



quite blunt little lobes. 



P. speciosa has its chief beauty in its foliage. For the leaves are 

 of a raw loveliness : stalked trefoils of goodly shape, notably thick and 

 firm and fleshy, toothed round their generous ovals, and all gleaming 

 and shimmering under the sun in a pure smooth coat of silver. The 

 flowers are not always freely produced from among the waving stout - 

 ked tuffets of foliage, and their lack is not greatly felt, for they 

 are of a creamj'-white not especially distinguished, though of reason- 



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