AETHIONEMA. 
Ae. cordatum (EKunomia) is a copy of Ae. cardiophyllum, but here 
the clear yellow crosses are larger, at the ends of the few straggling 
stems, whose lower leafage of heart-shaped grey leaves tends to fall 
away at last, but while they linger, make the shoots look almost 
like those of some very much diminished Kalanchoe. (Armenia, Lycia, 
Lebanon, &c.) 
Ae. coridifolium is the most abused name in the race. Every other 
Aethionema in catalogues turns out to be Ae. coridifolium. In point of 
fact, the most fashionable wearer of this name in gardens is probably 
Ae. pulchellum. And the Iberis jucunda of lists is Ae. coridifolium, 
which too often also does duty for the half-mythical Ae. grandiflorum. 
Aethionema coridifolium is a many-stemmed bushling, the twigs all 
being undivided and unbranching from the base, rather succulent and 
fat, thick-set with short oblong or narrow blue-grey leaves, either 
pointed or blunt at the tip. The large flowers are borne in short dense 
heads of pink, and in freedom the plant compares with Ae. pulchellum, 
but the leaves are shorter, and the seed-pods are boat-shaped (not 
heart-shaped), edged with only a narrow wing of membrane. (Lime- 
stone Alps of Lebanon.) 
Ae. diastrophis, from Russian Armenia, is very close to Ae. pul- 
chellum, but may be known by its much smaller seed-pods, and the 
membranous wings that surround them, which are cut to the middle, 
sharply. In beauty and charm, however, it rivals Ae. pulchellum. 
Ae. grandiflorum is the glory of the race, and if it be so much a myth 
to-day in gardens and catalogues, this may be only because it begets 
its own confusion by interbreeding with Coridifolium. The true 
Aethionema grandiflorum has long boughs undivided and unbranching 
from the base, forming a loose bush of 12 inches or more, either erect or 
more or less flopping. The leaves are long, blue-grey, drawn-out and 
rather blunt. The fruit-heads are short and dense, each pod being 
nearly round (boat-shaped in Ae. coridifoliwm, heart-shaped in Ae. 
pulchellum), but a little broader than long. The flower-spikes are 
loose and lovely, the flowers being pink and very beautiful, the 
largest in the race, as big as those of Arabis alpina, each petal being 
four times the length of each sepal. This glory of the garden hails 
from the Schirder Ghyll on Elburs in Persia, and is the biggest 
of the family. 
Ae. heterophyllum is a queer and most desirable treasure from 
Talysch, exactly like Petrocallis pyrenaica in looks and habit, with 
prostrate naked minute branches, emitting little leafy shoots of 
angular narrow leaves, with short spikes of pink blossom—the whole 
thing being like a tuft of close moss to see. 
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