ANDROSACE. 
A. Charpentiert is a very rare and beautiful Aretia, confined to a 
few summits above Como and Lugano, where, in the topmost ridges, 
often in grass, it forms wide and rather lax masses of shoots, bare 
below, with rosettes at the end, of rather broad, blunt leaves narrowing 
a little to the base, and quite downy all over with fine hairs, but especially 
at the edge (thus clearly remote from A. Wulfeniana and A. ciliata, 
which both have bald leaves). Up from these come the little downy 
flower-stalks, standing erect, twice as long as the leaves, and each 
carrying one rose-pink flower, with the petals oval, hardly notched at 
all at the end. In cultivation, in light free well-drained soil, this 
treasure is by no means difficult, and generously repaying, being 
much less insistent on rest and resentful of winter damp than its 
much tighter and woollier cousins from the much greater elevations 
of the Central Alps. 
A. Chumbyi. See under A. sarmentosa. 
A. ciliata, apart from its localities, may be known from A. Char- 
pentiert, which it resembles in rose-pink blossom and possession of a 
little stem to each bloom, by having larger flowers (the largest and 
finest in this group—about one-third of an inch) on stems scarcely 
rising above the leaves (in downy A. Charpentieri and smooth A. 
Wulfeniana these stems are twice the length of the leaves in height), 
which are narrower and shorter in proportion, quite smooth and hazrless 
except for a fringe at their edge, and not growing narrower at the base. 
They are nearly a quarter of an inch long, oblong-spoon-shaped, 
arranged in a neat rosette at the top of the lax branches, from which 
they die away below each year, not forming a column of dead relics. 
This beautiful Aretia is very rare in the highest limestone rocks of the 
Pyrenees (Port d’Oo, Pic de Salettes, and Maladetta, at 9000 feet). In 
cultivation it is not by any means intractable under careful treatment 
in choice crevices, not having the down that spells death to so many of 
its kindred and neighbours from those heights. 
A. cylindrica is yet another extremely rare prize, occurring on the 
limestone at upmost elevations in the Western Pyrenees (Oule de Mar- 
boré, Maladetta) here and there. This curious small species rises on 
stepping-stones of its dead leaves, till every shoot has become a dense 
aged column of dead foliage, crowned with thick fat downy leaves, 
longish, very broad and blunt, hoary grey, from which appear lonely, 
on fine little stems of some half an inch, the milk-white stars. This 
plant, being downy, requires the same care as is exacted by the much 
tinier Helvetica, but has successfully weathered winters even here 
in crevices of the Cliff above the Ingleborough Lake (N. Yorkshire). 
A. Duthieana will prove a pleasant companion to its close relations, 
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