SAPONARIA. 



times to a I o1 i i more, with huddled heads of straw -coloured flowers 

 with dark anth< rs. [1 should have ;> v.., mi and p if . tly well-drained 

 <-t by any means of special lovelirx 



S. x Bvissicri is a hybrid between 8. caespitosa and 8. ocy,i 

 — from which parents have resulted altogether admirable offspring — a 

 neat and dwarf mat-forming thing, with decumbent stems much more 

 profusely set than S. caespitosa, with flowers twice as large as in 

 S. ocymoeides, and of no less clear a pink than in both. 



S. caespitosa is a peculiar glory of the Pyrenees, where, in the high 

 limestone alps, it forms wide and woody-rooted lawns of huddled small 

 leaves, thick and narrow and fleshy and pointed, from which arise 

 graceful reddish stems of 5 or 6 inches, carrying at the top two or 

 three buds of reddish velvet, from which unfold large oval-petalled 

 flowers of bright pink. 



S. calabrica is a bedding annual too common to be more than 

 mentioned here. 



S. cerastioeides. See Gypsophila cerastioeides. 



S. cypria is pretty and neat and pink for a warm dry place. 



S. depressa comes from Thessaly and Sicily. This also forms mats 

 of smooth and bluish-green foliage, with rather sticky and downy stems 

 from 2 inches to a foot in height, carrying one or two large pink flowers. 



S. x laeta is another beautiful and brilliant low-growing hybrid, 

 this time secondary, between S.xBoissieri and S . X Boissieri' s pollen- 

 parent, S. ocymoeides, of which, accordingly, it has more the character. 



8. lutea is a rarity that suffers from the anticipations aroused by its 

 name, which leads one to expect a golden counterpart of 8. caespitosa, 

 so that when we only get a huddle-headed crowd of pale straw-yellow 

 stars on a stem of 2 or 3 inches, we are apt to overlook the real and 

 personal charm of the neat little bright-green mat of flattened pale 

 foliage springing from the woody trunk, and to turn blind eyes upon 

 the diaphanous subtlety of the small hyaline flowers themselves, 

 with their woolly calyx and blackened eye of dark anthers. S. lutea 

 need not often so afflict us, though ; it is a most precious speciality of 

 the southern slopes of Monte Rosa, and far away from there, on the 

 Mont Cenis, where it is abundant indeed but extremely local, being 

 found for choice in close crevices of the huge grey granite boulders 

 of the Little Mont Cenis and the Val Savine most especially, but 

 among the hillocks below the Lake. In cultivation 8. lutea, para- 

 doxically enough, is not so perfectly hardy as scores of plants from 

 far lower and even maritime elevations ; it requires non-calcareous 

 peaty soil or moraine, in full sun, and in an especially well-drained, 

 dry, and warm position. 



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