ALYSSUM. 
A. austriaca, from the limestones of the Eastern Alps, the foliage is 
yet longer and furrier, but the flower is also a trifle larger. 
Alyssopsis Kotschyi is a small hoary-grey tufted Crucifer from 
the crevices of Lebanon, with the yellow flowers of Alyssum and the 
general habit of Draba. 
Alyssum, an immense race of rather low-growing annual or 
perennial Crucifers, especially abundant in the warmer climates of 
Europe, and abounding across the temperate zone of the Old World. 
Many are weeds, but many, again, are of the highest value in the rock- 
garden, where all grow readily in light soil or moraine, in a sunny. 
exposure, and may be profusely multiplied by seed. The blooming 
season is usually in spring and early summer; and the unvarying 
colour of the flowers in every true Alyssum is always and only yellow, 
plants with white or pink flowers having now been banished into races 
of their own. Here follows a list of some of the best species—all 
those mentioned being perennials. 
A. alpestre is a most commen and most variable species of universal 
distribution in all the Alps to Western Asia and North Africa. It is 
a prostrate, almost shrubby, diffuse plant, hoary grey all over with 
starry hairs. The little leaves are oblong, the petals rounded, the 
flowers in unbranched heads, the pods small, more or less obovate. 
A. serpyllifolium, from Spain, Mont Cenis, &c., is a well-marked form, 
with minute leaves like a Thyme, indeed; much more densely grey, 
and flowers small and pale. Quite near A. alpestre, too, is A. 
bracteatum from the Persian Alps, but here the flowers are of a softer 
yellow, and the petals are scalloped instead of being smooth at the 
edge. The flower-head, again, is looser and more divided, the leaves 
more rounded, silvery with white scales. 
A. argenteum is a useful thing, but in quite a different style—the 
type of the tall-growing species, attaining 18 inches or so, and then 
expanding a wide flattish loose head of very small deep golden 
blossoms that make a fine effect when appearing in a mass, the more 
so that they open in later summer, and would associate worthily 
with Campanula rotundifolia. Others in this non-alpine group are 
A. consteliatum, A. masmenaeum, A. elatum (really fine, from the pine- 
woods of Lycia and Caria, with flowers as large as in A. sazatile) ; 
A. crenulatum (from Mount Cassius in North Syria), after the same 
kind, almost shrubby ; A. floribundum, a close copy; A. peltarioeides, 
A. samariferum, and, most curious of all, that strange and rare plant 
A. corsicum, which is only found in one small district near Bastia, 
where it fills all the fields with the glow of its wide golden heads, 
a species akin to A. argenteum, but twice the height, and in its 
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