THLASPI. 



Th. Kotschyanum has only a life of two years in the high screes of 

 Elburz. where it attains 2 inches from its tuffet, and lightens the 

 stony places with ample heads of fine white bloom. 



Th. limosellaefolium is the rarest and yet the easiest to grow of all 

 the shingle-Thlaspids. It is confined to the high places of the Maritime 

 Alps, on the granite of the upmost folds and passes of the mountains in 

 the group of Argentera and Enchastraye. It has much the same 

 general habit as Th. rotund i folium, though it does not wander, but forms 

 a looser and upstanding clump of leaves which are narrow, long, 

 spoon-shaped, brightly green and of ordinary commonplace texture, 

 as they are of ordinary commonplace colour (instead of affecting the 

 packed fatness, the round outlines, the fleshy firmness, the dark 

 and livid iron-grey gloss of Th. rot audi folium). It looks, in faci. 

 much more like a tuft of Lamb's Salad, strayed up unadvisedly into 

 those grim and silent desolations. The flowers are very beautiful ; 

 a profusion of stems, 2 or 3 inches high and sometimes more, 

 spring from the clump and bear flattened domes of most delicious 

 sweetness in lighter and warmer rose-lilac tones than those of Th. 

 rotund i folium. Both plants, indeed, have a rare winsomeness ; their 

 cosy and comfortable habit, their packed heads of dainty and fragrant 

 bloom so huddled and friendly in those high and friendless places, 

 the delicate brightness of their colour in the wildernesses of grey or 

 russet stone to which they so confidingly nestle, all combine to earn 

 them a most special place alike in one's heart and in one's moraine. In 

 cultivation I believe Th. limosellaefolium to be easier and freer than 

 Th. rotundi folium, which it so successfully replaces in the crude high 

 granites of the Maritirnes ; it strikes with delightful readiness from 

 summer cuttings, which next year are much more hearty and heartily- 

 blooming tuffets of rosy fragrance than the parent tuft ; so that this 

 might prove the best way of cultivating all the high-alpines of this 

 race — by treating them as annuals or biennials, and keeping a constant 

 supply of cuttings coming on. There is a white form, too, of Th. 

 limosellaefolium, which I found in the upmost shingle of the Boreon ; it is 

 amazingly ready and vigorous alike in growth and flower ; but, though 

 a really pretty and pure thing, there are so many pure and pretty white 

 things among the Alpine Crucifers, that one cannot think the Thlaspi 

 has acted for the best in relinquishing its own especial and essential 

 charm of soft sweet rosy-mauve. 



Th. microjjhyllum is only an inch high, with very tiny rosettes, 

 tight and dense, of minute smooth-edged leaves with heads of white 

 flowers adorned with purple anthers, it lives beside the snov. 

 Parnassus. 



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