THLASPI. 



All the species have a handsomeness, but they also have a large 

 lushness and crudity that detracts from their value. 



Thlaspi. — This. little race of Crucifers can easily be told from all 

 others of the family, except Lepidium and Iberis, by their membrane- 

 winged seedpods ; and from Iberis and Lepidium by having more tlian 

 one seed in each cell. Th. montanum, Th. alpestre, and Th. alpinum, 

 Th. brevistylum, and Th. praecox aro all prettyish little tufted bright- 

 green plants of the Alps, with heads of white flowers in spring on leafy 

 stems of 3 or 4 inches ; they are not, however, by any means perennial, 

 and are not of any moment in the garden (though pleasant in stray 

 remote corners of the moraine) — by no means adapted to come into 

 competition with the beauties of the race, among which are found 

 some of the best -beloved jewels that the highest shingles have to show. 



Th. affine makes a close dwarf tuffet high on Scardus, set with white 

 flowers with anthers of creamy -pink. 



Th. Andersoni has flowers of white or pink in wet places of high 

 Alps in Garhwal and Kumaon. 



Th. bellidifolium stands near Th. rotundifolium, but emits no 

 caudicles or wandering shoots from the neck, sitting tight on Scardus 

 in closely-matted cushions of fat and bluntly-paddle-shaped little 

 fleshy dark leaves, crowned with flattish heads of lovely sweet-scented 

 rose-purple blossom. When acquired it must be cultivated in the 

 moraine, like all the group here treated, and allowed ample water 

 flowing beneath its feet in spring, to make it think that the snows are 

 melting once more in its former home. I say, when acquired, for a 

 most frightful weed has lately come forth under this name — a rosette 

 of ample glaucous leaves, sending up a stem of several inches, with 

 microscopic flowers of dingy white. 



Th. cepeaefolium is the choicest of tiny treasures in this treasurable 

 group. It is never found except on the high granites of the far Eastern 

 Alps, very rare, and almost confined to the Raibl Thai in Carinthia. 

 It is a frailer, more upstanding spindly miniature of Th. rotundifolium, 

 but never running nor forming such rosetted clumps ; the tiny leaves 

 being narrower and much sparser and smaller, concentrating their 

 energies in much more lavishly decorating the many little fleshy 

 2-inch stems, which are taller, and more tidily furnished-looking than 

 the larger and laxer though shorter ones of Th. rotundifolium. And 

 these leafy stems spring straight from tho neck of the tuft, bearing 

 tight rounded heads of delicately-sweet little flowers of lilac-mauve. 

 For greatest care in the choicest foreground of the moraine, in full sun. 



Th. Hausshiechtii and Th. papillosum are white-flowered high- 

 alpines of the Levant, of the tame style and habits as Th. alpinum. 



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