SOLDANELLA. 



shape. Apart from its smaller size and difference of configuration, the 

 bloom is usually of paler colour than in the rest ; and in the Dolomites 

 (where it comes upon the limestono that it does not universally prefer), 

 it fades to a pallor almost snowy, and the little bells chime ghostly in 

 their uncounted millions in the steep and stony screes above Misurina 

 in tho summer, springing from their glossy mats in the close coign 

 of dankness between each block, till all the slope becomes a-flickcr 

 with its multitudes. 



The different species often overlap, and a long chain of hybrids has 

 arisen, as easy and as beautiful as their parents, but as rarely seen in 

 gardens as in catalogues, which have only lately begun to recognise 

 their existence, and are yet in pardonable difficulties about their names. 

 Here, then, they are, up to date : 



S. X Wiemanniana (8. X vierhapperi, Janch) has 8. alpina and 

 S. montana for its parents. It stands intermediate, with no streakings 

 in the throat of tho widely-expanded and irregularly wildly fringy 

 flowers. Sometimes their foot-stalks have the longer impermanent 

 glandular hairs of 8. montana, and sometimes the small more sessile 

 glands of 8. alpina. 



8. X lungoviensis stands between S. pusilla and 8. montana. It is 

 a smaller S. montana, with an added touch of depth to the more tubular 

 and yet crazily- fringed bells, and on their foot-stalks glandular hairs 

 that do not fall off as hi 8. montana. 



S.xRichteri (S.xtransylvanica, Borb.) is the hybrid of S. pusilla 

 and 8. hungarica. The flowers are two to the little stems, and com- 

 promise, like the rest, between the shallower ragged bowls of the one 

 parent and the longer, smaller, frilled bells of the other. 



S.xhybrida (S.Xmedia, Briigg.) is perhaps the most beautiful of 

 any, borrowing from the small scale and exquisite soft colouring of 

 pale 8. pusilla, and also from the deep fringes, taller habit, and internal 

 streakings of 8. alpina. It may bo seen abounding in the high woods 

 of tho Brenner district, filling the moss-cushions with its shining round 

 little dark leaves, and hanging out everywhere a dancing chorus of tho 

 loveliest ample and swelling waxen bells of clearest pale lilac, longer 

 than in 8. alpina, wider than in S. pusilla (so that a delicate cone- 

 shape results), frilled most exquisitely from the mouth, and streaked 

 inside with five blurred lines of crimson -violot velvet that achieve the 

 final note of its especial and endearing charm. Tho influence of 

 S. alpina is seen in the increased stature, size, and t lie two, or even three, 

 flow< is to a stem of 2 or 3 inches ; that of 8. pusilla in the longer shape 

 of the pale bells, never fringed to more than half their depth, and 

 rarely as deeply as that. 



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