ANDROSACE. 
Glarus, not far from that strange hole in the wall of mountains which 
is called the Martinsloch, may very sparingly be found on the stark 
rosy cliffs this delicate hybrid between A. helvetica and A. alpina. 
The plant, together with Helvetica’s saxatile proclivities, bas Helvetica’s 
tight tufted habit, though a little softer and looser (under the influence 
of Alpina); while from Alpina it inherits its blossoms of glowing pink. 
A. Heeri is sometimes introduced to cultivation, but always proves 
miffy and difficult. It should be looked for in all districts where the 
parents occur. I myself once found a single specimen at the top of the 
old Breitenboden glacier-bed, close under the shadow of the Schwarz- 
horn in the Oberland ; and no doubt many more await discovery. 
A. helvetica, when all is said and done, remains the gardener’s 
type and darling among the high-alpine Androsaces, so cosy look its 
rounded hummocks in their rock, so beautiful its generous eruption 
of pearly rounded stars. Through all the European Alps it ranges, 
sporadic but abundant at great elevations, hugging the hard limestone 
cliffs and topmost wind-swept ridges of stone. Here, close in their 
cracks, are ensconced the plants, forming fat little ash-green domes of 
minutely-rosetted leaves, glistering with microscopic hairs and giving 
the effect of so many soft velvet pincushions, until with the melting 
of the snow and the unbinding of the mountains from their sleep 
the fountains of life are loosed, and the hoary tuft conceals itself 
beneath an overlay of milky-white flowers, flat on the cushion, 
laughing out across the gulfs of the world with their bright gold eyes. 
So lives A. helvetica, till in winter the iron once more descends, and 
the Beauty is held in her long magic sleep, or put to bed beneath a warm 
grey coverlid of snow. And yet, in cultivation, where all are homesick 
for their native air, A. helvetica is unquestionably the easiest of the 
high-alpine section ; and even in the damp chill Cliff above the lake 
at Ingleborough has weathered five successive winters of wet and 
darkness, never ceasing to increase the number of its rosettes each 
year. In the Alps the plant can be confused with none; the great 
height at which it is found, the hard limy rock (limestone as a rule), 
reveal its identity. A. imbricata is white as wool; and of its other 
kindred none has the very short, thick, fat, inward-curving little 
downy leaves, dusty-green rather than grey, and giving a globular 
look to each microscopic rosette. It is most abundant in the Oberland, 
and I have often seen it in other regions, as on the actual summit of 
Piz Padella in the Engadine. In the Dolomites, which do not run 
high enough to please it, A. helvetica seems to be replaced by A. Hauss- 
mannit; but in one point, at the comparatively low elevations of the 
Schlern, there are cliffs and gullies full of it ; while its green sponges 
(1,919) 49 D 
