ALSINE. 
Alsine, a typical race of minute—as a rule—tufted rock-plants 
nearly related to the Pinks, with flowers usually minute and almost 
invariably white. Only the most subtle differences separate Alsine 
from Arenaria, in which family all the most brilliant members of 
Alsine have at times been allowed to take refuge, but are now most 
usually reclaimed. At the same time, a certain amount of confusion 
still subsists, and the same species may be found twice in the same 
catalogue, both under Alsine and again under Arenaria. It is as 
well to remember this. The essential generic difference between 
Arenaria and Alsine ought to be that in Alsine the seed-capsule has 
as many divisions as the flower has styles, while in Arenaria it has 
twice as many divisions as the flower has styles. Botanists, however, 
are never weary of playing games ; and the following lists of both races 
must be read as containing many species in each that may well be, 
and often are, referred to the other. 
The best species of Alsine—the race containing many minute- 
flowered dowdy little high alpine weeds—are probably the following : 
A. Bauhinorum heads the list—one of the most beautiful plants 
that the rock-garden can desire. It is often called Arenaria or Alsine 
liniflora, and is the lime-loving counterpart of the hardly less beautiful 
A. laricifolia. It is by no means uncommon in sunny rocks and stony 
exposures of the Southern limestones (Col de Pesio, &c.), and in the 
garden, under similar conditions of a sunny slope in light soil, still 
further lightened with limestone chips, it has no scruple about growing 
on quite normally into its natural woody trunked masses, forming 
loose mats of fine green fur, from which rise such an abundance of very 
large pure-white flowers on waving airy stems that the whole cushion 
becomes an undulating 8-inch mound of snowy cups and stars, till one 
greatly regrets the loss of a name so descriptive and apt as Liniflora. 
July to August ; seed. 
A. erythrosepala, from alpine Anatolia, forms tight dense masses, 
from which emerge the almost stemless heads of blossom, the sepals 
having a rim of red. This, like all other of the dwarf mats, should 
have a choice and handy position, in light rocky soil, in a chink or in 
the moraine. Like all the rest of its race, it comes easily from seed. 
A. eurytanica is a neat little species from the Alps of Greece, not 
unlike our own A. verna, but very much handsomer, forming a loose 
green tuffet of moss from which rise 6-inch stems, each carrying a 
loose shower of from five to thirteen flowers, as large and brilliant as 
in Arenaria montana. The whole plant is quite hairless and green, most 
particularly to be desired, it seems. 
A. gracilis (or Arenaria gracilis) is a form or species allied to A. 
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