STELLARIA. 



purple and white. Equally magnificent in a new style is S. undulata, 

 which makes perfectly smooth hairless downless tufts of wavy-toothed 

 foliage, from which rise foot-high stems breaking into big heads of 

 flowers especially large, puro white, and frilled in great chaffy stars 

 of an even moro brilliant snowiness to complete their effect. This 

 lovely thing is found along the coast from Attica to Puerta de Despena- 

 perros in Spain. Of smaller species there are many of similar charm 

 among themselves, all well-deserving of more attention than they 

 get ; for few things could be prettier than our own S. lychnidifolia 

 (S. auriculaefolia, Vahl. and Benth.), and the still neater and tinier 

 8. reticulata, which almost approaches the daintiness of 8. minuta. 

 But among these species there is wild confusion, so closely are they 

 allied, and the name Auriculaefolia, for instance, is so generally applic- 

 able that it has been generally applied — as, to S. ovalifolia and 

 8. Gerardiana (S. ovalifolia having also been called S. globulariaefolia). 

 The picture, then, to be made of all these, is of a basal tuft of neat and 

 grey-green leathery oval leaves, from which rise spraying loose showers 

 of everlasting flowers in chaffy cups, which though of no brilliant effect 

 in their muffled lilac-lavender, are yet of a delicate grace especially their 

 own, and specially valuable in S. Costae from Catalonia, whose dainty 

 stems have an arched and bending habit. S. corymbosa is a variety 

 of 8. lychnidifolia, while there are many more hi the same kinship, all 

 quietly well-bred little plants of airy effect on the rockwork, where 

 they bloom in summer and late summer, and should be exposed to 

 full sunshine in a well-drained light soil, and there propagated by 

 divisions pulled from the many -headed crowns, or else by seed. The 

 glory of the whole race, however, is 8. caesia from the salty wastes 

 of South-eastern Spam, forming mats and dense masses of small 

 spoon-shaped leathern leaves, densely hoar-frosted with lime till they 

 seem rimed with blue and white ; from these ascend a number of 

 stems sometimes a yard high, breaking into the noblest and amplest 

 pyramids of purple that the family affords. And, no less regal than 

 this, and even more germane in its growth for the rock-garden, is 

 8. insignis, which has the same amplitude and beauty, but is of much 

 dwarfer habit, and with the leaves of dark olive-green, hardly limy at 

 all. (It is a rare species of Southern Spain.) 



Stellaria. — The Stitchworts make no pretence to liveliness, but 

 for shady cool places on the rockwork there are several species that 

 either flop and flounder along, or form tufts of fine foliago studded 

 with an interminable succession of white stars in summer. Of these 

 S. bidbosa and 8. rddicans are of bigger, looser habit, while 8. ruscifolia 

 and 8. cerastioeides are clumps of some merit. 



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