AETHIONEMA. 
affection in a group of plants spoiled for me by the hint of green 
in the gold of their yellows. This is a species of farthest Asia, 
of which the Japanese make constant use in their exquisite toy- 
gardens that compress a dozen miles of mountain or shore into the 
compass of a salver. Here the forest may be represented by three 
little plum-trees of as many inches high, so many balls of white and 
rosy blossom, while on the foreshore lie scattered two or three buds 
of A. amurensis, neat globes of gold on the dark surface. Ultimately, 
however, the charming kitten grows into an unattractive cat, and 
A. amurensis follows the coarsening ways of its family. None the less, 
it is a beautiful thing, especially in its earlier stages; and varies, not 
only into a double form, but into varieties reported as white and pink. 
A. chrysocyathus, the Golden-cup, is the Adonis of the Indian 
Alps, where it precisely echoes A. pyrenaica, and ranges Eastward 
towards the rising sun in Japan. 
A. dahurica (March to April) is a Siberian version of A. vernalis, 
but earlier, more golden, and better worth possessing; while A. 
distorta is yet another form from Italy that blooms later. 
A. pyrenaica (June to July) is the best of the Europeans, with the 
most brilliant golden suns of blossom. It is distinct from A. vernalis 
in that its lowest leaves are not reduced to scales, but have regular 
long stalks, and are like the rest. Its bundles of seed-heads too are 
much larger, and it grows more strongly and branching. A. pyrenaica 
belongs to the mountain-fields of Catalonia and Aragon. 
A. vernalis (April to May) is the most generally cultivated, a 
species from warm limy exposures of Europe and away to the 
Caucasus, with unbranched stems, and the lowest leaves like over- 
lapping scales, and bright yellow many-rayed suns of blossom on stems 
that develop to about 10 inches. This is always the better for lime in 
a warm corner. 
A. volgensis has the leaf-habit of A. vernalis, but the blossoms are 
more those of Pyrenaica, though produced much earlier, in April. 
A. Walziana, from Eastern Europe, is a supposed hybrid between 
Vernalis and Volgensis ; hardly sufficiently distinct to be craved for. 
Aegopodium Podagraria is more coarsely known as the 
Goutweed, and, if a friend should dare offer you the variegated form, 
regard him for ever afterwards with suspicion. 
Aethionéma takes us back into the sunny limestones of the 
Levant, where dwells this lovely race of tiny bushlings set with spires 
of blossom, pink or yellow or white—among the most well-bred plants, 
alike in habit, leafage, and blossom, in the whole vast race of Cruciferae, 
whose highest ambition is to provide the world with salubrious but 
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