THALEIA DEALBATA. 



uprooted in the insensate gambollings produced by their intoxication, 

 . >i else oppressed by the slumbers of the later stage, when the Bacchants 

 usually choose Eritrichium or Oentiana bavarica for their beds. 



Thaleia dealbata is a most handsome water-plant of the Southern 

 States, not always hardy or prompt of bloom in the cold waters of 

 inclement climates, but desirable for a sheltered and sunny corner 

 in shallow still pools ; with great oval upstanding leaves of a smooth 

 and bloomy glaucous tone, contrasting with the brief feathered sheaf 

 of blue flowers that unfold as late as possible on a stem of 2 or 3 feet. 



Thalictrum. — This race, though not strictly alpine, contains a 

 number of plants notably beautiful and useful for the rock-garden, 

 whether it be with the effect of their very delicate Maidenhair Fern 

 foliage, or with their sprayed fluffy stars of blossoms that are often 

 brilliant and nearly always delicately charming. The race is quite 

 easy of culture in almost all its members, in any good rich loam in an 

 open place ; blooms in spring and early summer, and may readily be 

 raised from seed or multiplied by division in spring. 



Th. adianti folium is an exceptionally fine-foliaged variety of the 

 variable Th. minus, q.v. 



Th. alpinum is the tiniest of the race, a little plant so modest and 

 meek that it is not easy to catch sight of it in the highlands or the 

 alps, whether of England, Scotland, or Europe, where its few small 

 leaves stay close to the ground, and a bare stem rises some 4 or 6 

 inches high, nodding beneath a loosely arranged burden of perhaps 

 half a dozen rather large and tasselly flowers of dim greeny tone. It 

 should have a choice place in the underground-watered bed, in stony 

 gritty peat, and has interest but no conspicuousness. 



Th. anemonoeides= Anemonella thalictroeides, q.v. 



Th. angustifolium belongs to the ugly group of the family, with 

 stifnsh displays of yellowish blossom in July, on stems of a yard high. 



Th. aquilegifolium, on the contrary, is by far (at present) the 

 most generally important of the race. It is most abundant in the 

 moister meadows of the Alps, where sometimes its varying fluffs of 

 lilac, rose-amethyst, and cream appear to fill the fields with multi- 

 coloured foam, as on the slopes to the North of the Mont Cenis Lake, 

 where, at so high an elevation, the plant has grown into a more 

 condensed habit, the light and lovely maidenhair foliage of emerald 

 green (large and rich as in a stiffened Adiantum farleyense) lurking 

 below, while the stems rise in their millions some 15 inches or less, 

 each bearing a dense billow of indistinguishable volume, from pure 

 white to a velvety rose-purple. In the valleys far below it becomes 

 much ampler, and so may be seen in any English border in cool moist 



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