VERONICA. 



stems are especially dainty and fine and frail, while the spires of white 

 bloom are short and scantly furnished, springing from the tips of the 

 shoots no less than from the axils. (South-eastern Alps of Persia.) 



V. fruticulosa cannot be reckoned more than a variety of the 

 beautiful V. saxatilis, but it is quite distinct for the garden, a neat 

 half-woody little branching mass of much bolder and more erect 

 habit, some 6 or 8 inches high in a bush, with oval foliage, thick and 

 fleshy, crowded with hairs, towards the edge especially, and always 

 untoothed at the rims. As the stems ascend, the small oval leaves 

 grow smaller, and all the upper part of the plant is sticky with glandular 

 hairs. The stems go off into a much more marked, longer spire than 

 in V. saxatilis, and the flowers, instead of being of royal blue, are softly 

 pinkish with darker veining. It is a choice thing for the garden, and 

 may be seen in all the Southern alpine chains, but very rarely in 

 Switzerland (as in the Alps of Scotland), except on the limestones 

 of Engelberg, and about Dole in the Jura. Its whole look, more 

 bushy with long pink spikes, makes it wholly different from the floppy 

 V. saxatilis with its loose clusters of rich sapphire. 



V. galatica is 6 or 9 inches high, weakly ascending from an almost 

 woody base. Its relationship is with V. Chamaedrys. 



V. gentianoeides bears a rather ridiculous name, but is none the 

 less a useful and pleasant species among the coarser Veronicas that 

 are fitted for the garden. It makes large tufted masses of loose smooth 

 leafage, long and oval, of bright glossy green (there is a variegated 

 form). From these, in summer, arise many spikes of 10 inches or a 

 foot, tidily yet not tightly set with large flowers of palest blue with 

 a hem of deeper colour. It is a stately and beautiful creature, and well 

 deserves its place. 



V. Hendersonii=V. longifolia subsessilis. 



V. incana. — Even more may be said of this than of V. gentianoeides. 

 It is a Siberian and Caucasian species making wide clumps of most 

 handsome toothed oblong leaves of silver-grey, from which, in summer 

 and late summer, rise spikes of 6 or 8 inches, densely furnished with a 

 fluffy-looking mass of rich violet-blue blossom, in beautiful contrast 

 with the dense-plated silver of the foliage. Like the last, and like all 

 Veronicas except the highest alpines, this species spreads and thrives 

 profusely in any open place, seeds well, may be divided afresh almost 

 every day of the week, and is as admirable for a border or even an 

 edging as for the rockwork itself. 



V. incisa is a great 2-foot stalwart from Siberia, with flowers of pink 

 or blue in June. 



V. japonica is a form of the closely allied V. sibirica. 



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