POTEXTILLA. 



. - yet another whited Bepulchre. Li the hot rocky 

 places below li. : Valdieri it may be seen earning its name, 



and niak of the most lovely silver foliage, large and regal, 



Iked leaves waving in jungles from the silky crowns of the tuft, 

 and made up of some five or seven wedge-shaped oval toothed lobes, 

 velvety on both sides, and of an inimitable sheen. July calls up the 

 flower spikes, which lead one to expect a loveliness to match that 

 foliage. But alas, Potentilla is often niggardly of its beauties, and is 

 rarely guilty of so double a generosity as in P. nitida and P. Clusiana. 

 The stem of P. valderia comes up tall and stout and leafy, 18 inches 

 high, a? a rale, and bearing crowded branching heads of blossom. 

 And when those flowers open, the white petals prove so narrow that 

 the ample long green sepals stand out and show on every side, so that 

 eneral effect of the inflorescence is of dull greying green that by 

 no means redeems the leafiness and lush amplitude of the flower-stems, 

 and goes far to discount the superlative merit of the foliage. The 

 species is a mos: rare one ; abounding in the Valdieri valleys in the 

 hot stony tumbles of granite and porphyry, and then not seen again 

 till you get to the Balkan provinces. It must have full sun, and light 

 stony soil of ample depth ; and the garden will not go into mourning 

 if the flower-stems be nipped off betimes, so as to allow full play to 

 the noble glistering clumps of silver foliage. 



P. verna cannot well be distinguished from P. alpestris, which is 

 its magnified mountain form. Therefore divide the description of 

 P. alpestris by a third, and the result will give a picture of P. verna, 

 but that the beautiful abundant blossoms on their many fine branching 

 flopping sprays are not only smaller, but also of an undiluted, clearer, 

 lighter golden yellow in early summer, without orange spotting at their 

 base. It is a most variable type, however, and has a ver}- wide range, 

 occurring here and there all over England in isolated specimens, and 

 particularly refulgent as you sometimes see it in the Yorkshire highlands 

 from afar, lighting up the cold grey wall of a limestone cliff in June 

 with a blotch of gleaming yellow light. 



P. villoma is a foot-high plant from America, whose stature is con- 

 doned (like that of many, no doubt, in the preliminary list of super- 

 fluities) by specially brilliant heads of clean golden flowers springing 

 August above neat tufts of foliage clothed in a vesture 

 of long lawny silk. 



P. vi ■ via. 



P. V aid to have a stem of 8 inches, and bright yellow 



stars in Jm 



P. ..'oodfordii has an unknown historv, but is an old rare garden- 



102 



